The Last Years Of British India

The Last Years
of British India

By the same author:

The Necessary Hell: John and Hairy Lawrence and the Indian Empire
The Orchid House:

Splendours and Miseries of the Kingdom o/Oudh 1827-1857
A History of India: From Earliest Times to the Present Day
Asia in the European Age 1498-1955
Asia in the Balance
Nehru: a pictorial biography

The Battle of Plassey and the Conquest ofBaigal
Battles of the Indian Mutiny

The Last Years
of British India

MICHAEL EDWARDM

To the memory of the men, women and
children murdered in the streets and fields
of India, who, though they did not fight
for their country’s freedom, paid for it
with their lives.

The primary aim of this work is to place in its proper historical context
one of the most significant and portentous events of modem times —
the end of Britain’s Indian empire. This event was not only of funda-
mental importance to the three countries involved — Britain, India and
Pakistan. It was also the first step in the devolution of power by the
once-great maritime empires to the peoples of their colonial depen-
dencies. From Britain’s actions a whole new world was bom in hope,
a hope that has since been frayed and tattered by tragedy and suffering.
Consequently, the transfer of power in India has been subjected to the
mythomania of statesmen and politicians, hi British Labour circles, the
act of a British Labour prime minister in granting independence to
India was and still is seen in an almost religious light as the fulfilment
of a long-held and often-repeated promise to end the evils of colonial-
ism. There is some truth in such a belief, but very little, for great events
are always compounded of much more than doctrine, however deeply
felt it may be. The common Conservative attitude in 1947 was that the
Labour government’s decision to quit India was an act of treachery
which was, in turn, the product of small-minded weakness. In the
course of this book, I hope to show that even this apparently childish
attitude was not without some grain of truth to support it.

France, Holland and Portugal, too, saw Indian independence as
treasonable, a sort of stab in the imperial back, and their attempts to
restrain their own colonial peoples from independence offers proof of
it. The tenacity with which France, Holland and Portugal tried to hold
on to their overseas dependencies has made some of Britain’s ex-sub-
jects believe that her demission of power may well have been another
of those Machiavellian acts for which the British were famous — at

vii

PREFACB

• • •
vrn

least according to nationalist propaganda. Even a gesture as sweeping
as the transfer of power in India might be part of some labyrinthine
plot cooked up in Whitehall. However fatuous such beliefs may seem
in cold print they should not be dismissed as without consequence.
Many men have died in the past for beliefs no less foolish and un-
founded, and they will no doubt continue to do so in the future.

The present work is an essay in explanation, an attempt to display
and examine the many and diverse ingredients of an historical event
and to disentangle them from the web of propaganda and special
pleading. The actual transfer of power in India is, in one sense, only a
minor part of the drama of the decline and fall of British India — as, in
Sophocles’ tragedy, the self-imposed exile of Oedipus is but a result of
the impact of vast and complex forces. By defining the British depart-
ure from India in this way, I do not mean to diminish its importance in
the historical sense, nor, for that matter, the interest which it must hold
for the ordinary reader. Such interest is perfectly understandable, for
many of those who were intimately involved in the moves that cul-
minated in India’s independence from Britain are still alive and have
been subjected to both uncritical praise and ill-informed blame. Those

who search here for new revelations may well find them. However, it
• #

is not my primary purpose to expose, but to attempt to give a reason-
ably objective view of what actually happened and why. This book is
not propaganda for or against any of the controversial figures con-
cerned in the transfer of power. When opinions are expressed, they are
solely my own. These opinions are based upon facts, facts emerging
out of my own knowledge — for I was present when these great events
were maturing and came to fulfilment — and facts which have been
given to me by the men and women involved, in one way or another,
in the making of history. For those facts which are the scaffolding of
the book, I must express my gratitude to the many who have willingly
talked to me and answered my often impertinent questions. To
record all their names would be impossible; some of my informants,
in fact, have specifically asked that I should not mention theirs. I can
only thank them collectively and hope that they will not feel that I
have misinterpreted them or done them any intentional injustice.

The writing of contemporary history is always difficult. Much of the
real material of such history is not, at least officially, available to the
historian. There is also the question of how truthful one’s informants

PREFACE

IX

axe. I have taken every opportunity of checking the statements of
individuals, and where no such opportunity has been available I have
used my judgement to decide upon the truth. That judgement, as with
all human activity, is fallible, but I have tried to reduce the margin of
error to the thinnest possible line.

While preparing this work, which has taken many years of research
and inquiry, I was also engaged among other projects in writing a
military appreciation of another major event in the history of British
India, the Mutiny of 1857. No historian of the Indian Mutiny can do
without that great work, J. W. Kaye’s History of the Sepoy War, pub-
lished like the present work only a few years after the events it describes.
Kaye’s story too was hedged with all the difficulties of contemporary
history — controversy, whitewash, and deliberate perversions of the
truth. I can do no better in stating my own position than to adopt the
words Kaye used in the preface to the second volume of his book:

It is probable that the accuracy of some of the details in this volume, especi-
ally those of personal incident, may be questioned, perhaps contradicted, not-
withstanding, I was about to say, all the care that I have taken to investigate
them, but I believe that I should rather say ‘by reason of that very care’. Such
questionings or contradictions should not be too readily accepted ; for, although
the authority of the questioner may be good, there may be still better authority
on the other side. I have often had to choose between very conflicting state-
ments; and I have sometimes found my informants to be wrong, though appar-
ently with die best opportunities of being right, and have been compelled to
reject, as convincing proof, even the overwhelming assertion, ‘But I was dicrc.’

It has often been said to me, in reply to my inquiries, ‘Yes, it is perfectly true.
But these men arc still living, and the truth cannot be told.’ To this my answer
has been: ‘To the historian, all men arc dead.’ If a writer of contemporary
history is not prepared to treat the living and die dead alike — to speak as freely
and as truthfully of the former as of the latter, with no more reservation in die
one case than in the other — he has altogether mistaken his vocation, and should
look for a subject in prehistoric times.

‘To the historian,’ wrote Kaye ninety-three years ago, ‘all men are
dead.’ He might also have added that the author of that tiresome Latin
tag which begins ‘De mortuis . . .’ was not an historian. The dead — the
legally dead, that is — have of course no redress, but the living can bring
a libel action. The reader will realize from this how carefully I have
checked my facts.

Contents

PART ONE: THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL

1 The Brightest Jewel 2 The Legislators 3 The Rulers
4 The Natiotialists 3 The People

PART TWO: THE STRUGGLE

1 For Moral Effect 2 Non-cooperation 3 Marking Time
4 Stage Lightning and Teapot Thunder 3 Round Table and
After 6 A New Charter of Bondage 7 The Mad World of
War 8 A Post-dated Cheque 9 Quit India 10 Jai Hind!

PART THREE: THE VICTORY

1 Dramatis Personae 2 Three Wise Men 3 The Menac-
ing Shadows 4 The Key to Indian Freedom 3 Wars of
Succession 6 Leaping in the Dark 7 Moments of Truth
8 A Crucible for Chaplets 9 The Peace Treaty without a
War 10 The Tryst with Destiny

POSTSCRIPT: THE PLEDGE REDEEMED
1 The Inheritance 2 The Inheritors

INDEX

Maps

India in 1945

3<>

The Indian Union 1963

90

Economic Map of India in 1947

206-7

PART ONE

i The Brightest Jewel

As midnight struck on 14 August 1947, Britain’s Indian empire sub-
sided into the history books. For manv Indians who had struggled and
waited long for the day of freedom, there was satisfaction, tempered
perhaps with sorrow that the old British India had now been divided
into two new nations. For the majority of India’s people, however —
that vast majority of hundreds of millions — the significance of the day
was without reality; their poverty held more meaning for them than
any of the words and deeds of their leaders. Amongst the British,
engaged in giving away what Disraeli, that hard-headed imperial
romantic, had called ‘the brightest jewel in the British Crown’, opinion
was divided. For some, the transfer of India to the Indians was the final
consummation of Britain’s moral purpose — the education of Indians,
as British statesmen had been saying for over a century, to such a level
as to make them capable of governing themselves. Opinion here, too,
was divided. Some — politicians and others — thought the level had
been achieved years earlier and had said so consistently during the long
period when they were without political power. Others insisted that
the Indians had not reached the right level even in 1947, and that only
ruin and chaos could follow any transfer of power.

All these differing views, even the views of those who had no views
at all, played their part in the drama of the last years of British India.
These views were the products of actions and ideas — and of responses
to them — which had emerged over the many years of Britain’s con-
nexion with India. The simple conjuring trick played at midnight on
*4 August 1947 — now you see British India, now you don’t — had
roots reaching well into the historical past. The living who gave up
their inheritance, the living who accepted the legacies, were in all they

B

4 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

did, even in the ways they thought and felt, partly the puppets of the
dead. Dead statesmen, dead political philosophers, long dead and
almost forgotten events, all had exerted their pressures on the living.
This chapter is about those pressures and the men they helped to make,
men who, in their turn, made history.

2 The Legislators

Direct and undivided responsibility for the government of India was
not assumed by the British parliament until as late as 1858. Before that,
its authority had been exercised only through a governor-general who
was appointed by the British cabinet of the time but paid by the trading
organization which had made itself ruler of India. But the Bast India
Company’s administration was subject to the granting, every few years,
of a royal charter. Before 1773, the Company dealt with its affairs in
India pretty much as it chose, but a Regulating Act in that year sig-
nalled the first attempt of parliament to control the Company and the
Company’s servants in India. One of the provisions of this Act was the
establishment of a Supreme Court in Calcutta designed to administer
English law. Its chief purpose, in the words of Edmund Burke, was ‘to
form a strong and solid security for the natives against the wrongs and
oppressions of British subjects resident in Bengal’. Burke’s remark, the
Act itself, and all the other acts concerning government in India which
followed it, represent the continuing division between the legislators
and the actual rulers, between the British parliament and the British
administrators in India, who worked firstly for the Company and
secondly for the Crown.

The British parliament sought, with varying degrees of success, to
control its agents in India; parliament could make laws defining the
way in which India should be governed, but it could not itself govern
India. The reasons for tliis were simple. In the early days, there was the
distance between Britain and India; by the time news reached London
from India, the authorities in India had already acted. The British
government could only confirm or condemn the fait accompli. As com-
munications improved, however, with the opening of the telegraph
between India and Britain in 1865 and of the Suez Canal in 1869, the
control exercised by the secretary of state over his representative, the

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 5

viceroy, increased according to the strength of personality of the two
men involved. Nevertheless, the secretary of state in London could not
control the actual everyday administration of India at any time. India
was too big and the volume of administrative business too vast for the
constant approval of a cabinet minister thousands of miles away. The
British government, and through it the British parliament, controlled
only the general policy of Indian administration; it could not direct its
application in practice.

One aim remained constant throughout all the changes of policy
initiated by the British parliament until the 1947 transfer of power —
that Indians themselves should in some measure be involved in the
governing of India. Radical and, later, socialist criticism was directed
only at the speed and manner in which this involvement was to develop.
Criticism by Indian nationalists took the same course until they came
to realize that, as long as Indian affairs were controlled by a parliament
in Britain, there would always be a limit on the extent of their involve-
ment in their own government. This was the point at which they began
to demand firsdy self-government and then complete independence.

Much has been made, by apologists for British rule in India, of the
statements of nineteenth century politicians that Indians would one day
be self-governing — that they would demand British representative
institutions for themselves and that furthermore, in the words of
Macaulay in 1833, it would be ‘the proudest day in English history’
when they did. Although these statements, which were almost always
honestly meant, have an aura of ‘sometime, never (in my lifetime)’
about them, and although Macaulay’s view — that it would be foolish
and costly to hold on to India in such a maimer as ‘would keep a
hundred millions of men from being our customers in order that they
might continue to be our slaves’ — was typical of the most progressive
thinking of his time, they were not motivated by British self-interest
alone. Macaulay wanted to civilize — that is, anglicize — the Indians so
that they would buy British goods; but he and others also saw the
possibility that the Indians would come to demand British institutions
too, and British institutions were the right of any really civilized
man.

The British, then, began to ‘civilize’ India and to reform her society
in what they believed to be the best way possible, by introducing
English education and an English sense of values. Though essentially

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

6

arrogant, the reformers were genuinely convinced that a transformation
of India would benefit the Indians as well as themselves. Because reform
brought about results which coincided with European self-interest, the
moral aspect has often been dismissed as hypocrisy of the most un-
pleasant kind — exploitation disguised by humbug. But this is not true.
In the continuing liberal attitude to India a desire for commercial profit
was combined with real altruism. There was no question in the minds
of the early liberals but that India would one day be self-governing —
it would, however, be a new India transformed by Western institu-
tions and moral values, fit to become a partner in the new prosperity
that commerce would free for all.

This was all very well, but could Britain’s civilizing approach to
Indian society have any political parallel? Did the reformers in fact
believe that representative government was possible in India? They
did not. An ‘enlightened and paternal despotism’ was the most suitable
form of government for the diverse races of India until, of course, in
some distant future, the regenerative process of Western education had
produced a new class, ‘Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes,
in opinions, in morals and intellect’. But even when this came about,
there was to be no suggestion of representative government, for, as
Sir Charles Wood, secretary of state at the time of the Indian Councils
Act of 1 86 1, put it, ‘you cannot possibly assemble at any one place in
India persons who shall be the real representatives of the various classes
of the Native population of that empire’. As late as 1909, Lord Morley
— the then secretary <: f st ate — when piloting through the British par-
liament the legislation that came to be known as the Morley-Minto
reforms, was emphatic. ‘If it could be said,’ he told the House of Lords,
that this chapter of reforms led directly or necessarily to the establish-
ment of a parliamentary system in India, I for one would have nothing
at all to do with it.’

Thus Morley expressed once more the continuing belief that the
institutions of liberal democracy were unsuited to India, that a benevo-
lent despotism in which certain Indians could be associated, was much
better than the tyranny of representative institutions which might not
be and the British believed could not be — representative in any
Western sense. The vicissitudes of democracy today in the newly
independent countries of Asia and Africa might well be taken as a
demonstration that the reactionaries’ of the past were not far wrong.

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 7

But the British had let loose, had in fact created, forces which in the
changing climate of power after the 1914-18 War were to compel
them to accept the nationalist contention that representative govern-
ment for India was not only possible but desirable.

From 1861 to 1909, however, Britain’s policy of expanding India’s
association in the government of India went virtually unchallenged; in
fact, it received the enthusiastic support of most of those Indians who,
because of their education, had become ‘English in tastes, in opinions,
in morals and intellect’.

The first constitutional advance, the Indian Councils Act of 1861, had
been one of the consequences of the 1857 Mutiny in Bengal. The
Mutiny showed quite clearly that, however benevolent the rulers may
have been, their intentions were misunderstood by Indians, and that
the government knew little or nothing of the feelings of the people.
As one great Indian administrator summed it up: ‘To legislate for
millions with few means of knowing, except by rebellion, whether the
laws suit them or not’ was to say the least dangerous. With the Indian
Councils Act, the British now sought access to public opinion, appoint-
ing Indians to newly-created legislative councils. These Indians — who,
in fact, could express the opinions only of the Westernized few — were
not elected but nominated by the governor-general and by the gover-
nors of those provinces where legislative councils were to be set up.
The government thus sought the opinions of men who represented
only a tiny minority of Britain’s Indian subjects, a minority almost as
cut off from the vast bulk of Indians as were the British themselves.

The powers of these new councils were purely legislative; they were
not only barred from interfering in the control of administration, they
were not even permitted to discuss it. Indian members of the councils
were there for two main reasons. The Westernized middle-class had
remained loyal to the British during the Mutiny and it was only proper
that they should be rewarded; their loyalty seemed a further indication
that Macaulay was right in hoping that, in them, lay the future of India,
that, being Westernized, they would be fitted to become partners —
however junior — of the British. What else they might be fitted for in
the future was fortunately still a matter for conjecture, but as they were
closest to the British in their thinking it was necessary to persuade them
of Britain s good intentions. The rest of India was still responsive only
to tyranny, but the country was ruled by a mere handful of British

8 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

administrators and it was now becoming necessary to reinforce them
by involving educated Indians in the structure of government. Also, it
would be valuable to know their opinions. The appointment of Indians
to legislative councils gave status to the Indians concerned, and proved
that the government was on their side. It also proved that their interests
were linked with those of the British.

The British at first encouraged solidarity among the Indian middle
classes and when seventy-two Indians from almost as many parts of
India gathered in Bombay in 1885 for the first meeting of the Indian
National Congress, they did so with the full approval of the British
government. The viceroy of the time. Lord Dufferin, thought the
Congress an excellent means of tapping public opinion — though once
again it was to be the opinion of a minority, even if a growing one.
The first Congressmen, however, wanted more than to express their
opinions; they wanted to assert their right to greater involvement in
government, and they called for representative government and a legis-
lature with ‘a considerable portion of elected members’. What of course
they were demanding was not parliamentary democracy but a govern-
ment which represented them personally. These Western-educated
middle-class Indians wanted, not association without responsibility,
but active participation. Macaulay’s prophecy of 1833 that Indians
‘having become instructed in European knowledge . . . may in some
future age demand European institutions’ was being fulfilled.

The first Congressmen were by no means anti-British. They merely
desired the status that their education had fitted them for and that
Britain had said would one day be their reward.

The British responded with further constitutional advances in 1 892.
The provincial councils — though not the governor-general’s central
council — were allowed to discuss questions relating to administration
and the budget, and the majority of ‘non-official’ seats (seats other than
those held by government representatives) were to be filled on the
recommendation of such groups as municipalities, chambers of com-
merce and religious communities; this amounted in practice to election
by such groups. But the British government and its administrators in
India still believed that representative government was not suited to
India and that, furthermore, there was no real question of sharing
power with Indians. The British government’s view, the view of the
legislators, and the view of those unacknowledged legislators the

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 9

political philosophers, was against such a sharing of power and against
it for the best of reasons. Foremost in the mind of British statesmen was
the good of the mass of the Indian people, for whom the British be-
lieved themselves trustees.

The British, however, had deliberately created a Westernized middle
class in the hope that it would be in their own image, and there had
appeared instead a Frankenstein monster continually demanding
representative institutions as a remedy for all India’s ills. The govern-
ment’s belief that representative institutions were unsuited to India’s
needs was supported by the behaviour of these articulate middle classes.
When, for example, the government moved towards land reform and
against peasant indebtedness to the money-lender — and it moved
gingerly in the fear that Indian elected members of council, many of
whom represented land-owning and money-lending interests, would
impede legislation — Congress in response expressed its members’ deep
concern over the growing poverty of the peasant and declared that
representative institutions would 'prove one of the most important
practical steps towards the amelioration of the condition of the people’.
This neither the government of India nor the British government in
London believed to be true, and they were not prepared — for genuinely
felt reasons— to allow interference with their own slow but real reforms
in the condition of the peasant. They soon turned against these moder-
ate Congressmen, whose political ideas were not revolutionary, who

did not call for independence from Britain, who only wanted a slice
of the cake.

Congress had become the expression not only of a minority of
the Indian people, but of a minority of that minority. From 1870
onwards, there had been a considerable expansion of Western educa-
tion which produced not only more university graduates but also an
increasing number of men who had received some measure of English
education and looked for employment as clerks. Unfortunately, there
were not enough jobs for them and the unemployed malcontents
turned against the British and against their more fortunate countrymen

the wealthy and established Indian middle classes who dominated
Congress. The leaders of this newly-educated clement demanded
independence from Britain as the only way of satisfying their needs,
feeling themselves betrayed by the ‘moderates’ who, merely by
being moderate, were lackeys of the British and who could anyway,

io THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

being without financial worries, afford to wait — they turned to revo-
lutionary violence.

When the British realized the danger, they turned once again to
appeasing the moderates. Lord Minto, viceroy from 1905 to 1910,
gave it as his opinion that revolutionary activity should be stamped out
and that further concessions should be given to the more moderate
nationalists. The result was the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909. These
reforms accepted the principle of elections for the Governor-General’s
Legislative Council (called for convenience ‘The Centre’) and for the
provinces. The electoral ‘constituencies’, however, were still to be
communities and groups. At the Centre there was to be an ‘official*
(representative of the government) majority, but elsewhere the ‘non-
officials were to predominate. It was also decided that an Indian mem-
ber would be appointed to the Viceroy’s Executive Council — the
cabinet of British India. On the surface, these reforms seemed
to provide a considerable advance — but they were not, as Lord
Morley had forcefully pointed out, intended to lead to a parliamen-
tary form of government. On this point everyone in Britain was
agreed.

It has been suggested that, Indians having had a crumb of the cake,
the British should have anticipated that they would soon demand a
slice. This was in fact realized by many from Macaulay onwards. The
problem, however, was not how to avoid giving someone a slice, but
how to decide who should have it, how it should be offered, and on
what kind of plate it should be presented. The British quite naturally
believed their political system to be the best there was, but they were
also aware that the system had emerged in response to the demands
of the British people, who had fought for it and over it. They

knew from their imperial experience that it would not work in other
societies.

The dilemma was a real one. The British had deliberately created a
Westernized class who now claimed Western institutions. The British
had often said they would provide them, and had seemed quite pleased
at the thought. But now it appeared obvious that, if Western institu-
tions were granted, the mass of the Indian people would probably
suffer. The only possible answer would be to find some traditionally
Indian institutions which could be adapted to fit the case. Unfortun-
ately there were none, for the only institutions of a popular kind in

II

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL

India were the village councils — which might be satisfactory for the
village, but were no basis for wider local government let alone the
government of the country itself.

The British approach to politics had never been very speculative or
original; they had tended to adapt old ideas rather than construct new
ones. Though a great deal of thought by political philosophers and
others had gone into the question of British administration in India, it
had all been based on the premise that despotism was the form of
government best suited to India’s needs, or what the British believed to
be her needs. They felt a moral responsibility for ensuring the greatest
good for the greatest number, but at the same time, they had a civiliz-
ing mission. The British were no fools and they could not see these two
attitudes being compatible; nor could they see any precedent for
making them so. Nevertheless they were unwilling to abandon either.
Administration was something real, it was moral responsibility in
action, and therefore the more important. The civilizing mission, on
the other hand — the fitting of India for self government — was a pious
hope, the fulfilment of which could conveniently be shifted on to
the next generation.

Until 1914, the British could afford to take this line for their power
was still unquestioned. The terrorists who threw bombs and fired
revolvers at British officers did not seriously think they could bring
down the British Raj. They thought that, as the Mutiny had done, they
could perhaps frighten the British into reforms. In one sense, these
terrorists were following European rather than English precepts; the
moderates whom they despised were very English in their demands
and in the gentle, reasonable way in which they put them forward.
The terrorists, in contrast, had in front of them the example of nine-
teenth century Europe where revolution meant violence and the way
to fight tyranny was not to reason with it but to throw a bomb at it.
But though the British might be unsure of how to deal with political
problems, there was no doubt in their minds about what to do when
violence threatened.

The war that broke out in 1914, however, brought about profound
changes not only in Britain’s position in the world but inside Britain
herself. These changes resulted in new attitudes towards her responsi-
bility in, and to, India. In India also, new forces were emerging, forces
which were to transform the nationalist movement from a minority

12 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

group into a national rally and to claim the support of those very
masses of whom the British felt themselves to be protectors.

After the end of the war in 1918, Britain s prestige in the world
appeared not only undiminished but even enhanced. In actual fact,
however, the war had enfeebled her in what was once her powerful
asset, her wealth. Power is intimately related to economic strength and
Britain’s empire had been built — and sustained — by her dominant
position in the industrial and financial structure of world trade. After
1918, this position was continuously eroded by the United States of
America. After 1918, British power, already weakened from within,
was to receive new challenges from the new fascist imperialisms of
Germany and Italy, from the Soviet Union, and, in Asia, from Japan.
These challenges would have been of little consequence if the rulers of
Britain had not been compelled by vast social forces inside Britain itself
to become inward rather than outward-looking.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Britain’s strength — the
period from about 1870 until 1914 was the zenith of her power — had
been mainly derived from the vast quantities of surplus capital available
for export and investment in Asia, and, more particularly, in Africa.
This capital could have been invested at home, but only at lower rates
of interest, for, in order to increase the purchasing power of the
workers — essential if higher production was to be absorbed — it would
have been necessary to institute labour reforms and bring about a re-
distribution of the national wealth. At that time, however, social
reform was anathema to private enterprise; the working classes were
just another native race, to be exploited and denied a voice in their own
destiny. But the time came when this ‘native race’ began to demand
representative institutions and it could not be resisted. As it acquired a
greater say in its own affairs, with the extension of the franchise during
the 1914-18 War, it formed a powerful anti-colonial lobby. Why, the
people demanded through their leaders and representatives in parlia-
ment, should there be poverty and unemployment in Britain when
millions were being spent on the administration of far-away and non-
white countries? Far better to give these countries self-government.
Britain’s newly articulate classes who had, after a long struggle, gained
the right to participate in their own government, felt furthermore that
Britain’s unwillingness to grant the same right to Indians sprang from
self-interest alone and that the excuse that democracy was unsuitable

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 13

for India was merely eye-wash. The British Labour party, doomed it
seemed to perpetual opposition, resurrected the prophecies of Macaulay
and others and pledged itself to fulfil them. The combination of
threats at home, abroad, and in India itself, turned the British govern-
ment towards granting representative parliamentary institutions to
India. But it preferred to move slowly, for it still considered that such
a system was bad for the country. The British Labour party, however,
in the light of its own limited experience, believed that liberal demo-
cracy on the British pattern was the best in the world. So did Indian
nationalists, and for almost the first time they found themselves with
allies in Britain herself.

The concessions made by successive British governments from 1919
until the final transfer of power in 1947 were made not so much to
Indians as to the newly enfranchised classes in Britain and to that
nebulous but very real thing — world public opinion. With or without
the Second Woud War and the vast changes it produced, even the
British Conservative party would shortly have been compelled by all
these pressures to grant self-government to India. After 1918, it was
no longer possible for any British government to permit itself to have
genuine reservations about the suitability of parliamentary institutions
for India. Whether real or imagined, Britain’s moral responsibility for
the welfare of the Indian people was of no consequence, for the
questions now were not concerned with what sort of government
suited India, but with how and when power was to be transferred to
the Indians, and with the quickest and most reasonable way of satisfying

all the pressure groups as well as, if possible, the conscience of the
British.

3 The Rulers

The government of British India was unlike any other administration
in the British empire. It behaved not as the government of a colony
but as an almost independent state. The British parliament had always
recognized this, from the days of the East India Company when diffi-
culties of communication between London and Calcutta permitted
independent action to the British who ruled in India. Edmund Burke
expressed a fear that the breakers of law in India (that is, the British)

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

might become the makers of law in England. This was not particularly
likely, though the Services that ruled India had powerful lobbies at
Westminster. The real danger lay in the possibility that the interests
of the Indian empire might, in time, come to be of overriding import-
ance. India was so big that the problems of its security were also im-
mense and actions taken by the Indian government in defence of the
country could have had the widest international repercussions, affect-
ing Britain herself. From the Regulating Act of 1773 onwards, there-
fore, the British government’s primary aim was to try and exercise
control, not only over India itself, but over the British who ruled
there. Briefly, the fear of successive British governments in the nine-
teenth century was that the British who ruled in India might become
more concerned with India’s interests than they were with Britain’s.

This was in fact what actually happened. British administrators in
India very often thought of India’s interests first, even if the adminis-
trator’s ‘India’ was only that of a District Officer. The British civil
servants in India believed that their duty was to those whom they
actually ruled, and they felt a particular loyalty to the province in
which they worked; indeed, most of them spent all their years of
service in one province. They criticized the central government for its
interference in the affairs of the province, while the Centre, in turn,
resented the interference of the secretary of state in London. There arc
many examples of the Centre’s resistance to demands made by the
minister in London. Though the government in India complained
strongly on occasion to the home government, of necessity it could not
do so publicly and it was therefore open to criticism by Indian national-
ists as being helpless and subservient. In fact, early Congress criticisms
of the cost of civil and military administration in India and of the many
financial responsibilities forced upon the Indian government by West-
minster were shared by the governor-general. But the government of
India had no legal way of resisting the secretary of state, though it often
went to considerable lengths in the attempt.

Until 1909, the British government and the Indian Services were
agreed on at least one tiling — that the best form of government for
India was despotism. The men who ruled India saw themselves in one
sense as Indian rulers, carrying on a traditional form of government
which had operated in India before the British conquered it. But this
despotism was transformed by British ideas of responsibility and ‘fair

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 15

play’; the administrators saw it not as an exploitive despotism but as
a creative one. Very few of them believed that democratic institutions
could work in India and they feared that the British parliament, desper-
ately ignorant as its members were about India, would try to force such
institutions on the country. Their attitude was based partly on admini-
strative experience and partly upon a fear that any weakening of
British authority — which the involvement of Indians in government
would certainly mean — might lead to disorder. The British knew that
they had the strength to suppress isolated rioting but not, perhaps, a
well-organized revolt. The memory of 1857, when the native troops
of the Bengal army had mutinied and, in alliance with certain princes
and others, threatened British rule, was never too far away from the
minds of the British in India.

The effects of material progress in India, of railways, cheap postal
services, and of the spread of English as the language for the whole of
India, began to produce a new sense of Indian unity. For the first time
in India’s history, a man of the south could feel he had something in
common with the man of the north, the east, and the west. The
number of British administrators was never more than three or four
thousand, and below them they had a vast force of Indian subordinates.
The army too was predominantly Indian. Thus, as material progress
spread in India, so did the possibilities of successful revolt.

The District Officer, carrying out his duties with benevolent despot-
ism, began to sec his authority diminished by various quasi-democratic
boards and councils. Partisan attitudes arose. The peasant, who had
looked to the District Officer for impartiality, had done so precisely
because he was not an Indian and because there were other Englishmen
higher up to whom the peasant could appeal if the District Officer
failed him. But as changes took place, he observed that the District
Officer was being subjected to other pressures; the new district boards
might include the brother of the peasant’s landlord or the second cousin
of the money-lender. It seemed to the peasant that such board members
as these, and the sectional interests they represented, would make a fair
hearing of his own case impossible. The District Officer’s impartiality
appeared diminished, and he could probably be by-passed by influential
men. Such a state of affairs could only lead to dissatisfaction, to dis-
affection and uncase. As the government of India at its real level, the
District, was based not on a display of power but on the consent

jg the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

of respect, administration would not function if that respect was
eroded.

This was what the rulers of India feared and they did not see how the
situation could be avoided if the British parliament insisted on granting
representative institutions. As long as such institutions were confined to
local government, the District Officer could rdy on receiving support
from his own kind in the government of the province and even from
the Centre; but, as reform spread to those places too, he became sadly
aware that his days were numbered. He began to have fears about his
future, his pension rights, the justifiable rewards of good and honest
service. Young men, who had once been anxious for the opportunity
of ruling India, began to think of other and safer careers. Edward
Thompson, in one of his unjustly neglected novels of the twenties and
thirties of this century, makes one of his characters say of the British in
India: ‘We neither govern nor misgovern. We’re just hanging on,
hoping that the Last Trump will sound “Time !” and save us from the
bother of making a decision.* And this was true. Day-to-day adminis-
tration went on but the British came to feel themselves caretakers
rather than owners, concerned only with keeping the structure in
repair and unwilling to make improvements or alterations.

In the thirty years before 1947, the administrators’ attitude was that
the cautious grants of representative government to India were either
too big or too little, that the British should either stay with the old,
well-tried system of r.dministration or else leave the whole business to
Indians and get c . Half-measures only made administration increas-
ingly difficult, suggestions that the constitutional reforms did not go
far enough were, of course, not really meant seriously — except by a few
eccentrics. The Services sought at every stage to insert into the reforms
such clauses as would guarantee the executive arm of the government
as much independence as possible, and they succeeded at the level which
really counted — that of the District Officer. Even when there were
elected Indian ministers in the provincial governments, the Englishman
on the spot was still comparatively free to exercise his own judgement.
It was fortunate that this was so, for it permitted the nationalists to
fight the British in a fairly restricted arena and reduced the impact of
political agitation on the everyday lives of the masses. Thus, despite
large-scale civil disobedience and even violence, the administrative
grasp weakened but did not break.

THB BRIGHTEST JEWEL jy

The rulers of India between 1900 and 1947 were not bad men, nor
was the system they operated (and preferred) intrinsically bad. They
were simply the inheritors of a tradition which no longer had a com-
fortable place in the world.

The system of rule had not appeared overnight but had emerged
from many years of experience, experiment and failure. In fact, the
form of British government in India was without precedent; the men
who had evolved it had been submerged in the problems of an alien
society and unconsciously took on some of the values and traditions of
that society. They did much good, for their tyranny was inspired by
the belief, however arrogandy expressed, that they knew what was
best for India. Many of the ideas they had developed were later system-
atized by English political philosophers and re-exported to become
the tablets of the law for British administration. Until the end of the
nineteenth century, the despotism of the Indian government made it pos-
sible to carry out the most outstanding series of experiments in admin-
istration ever known. But these experiments had a certain frigidity,
for they were based upon the premise that all a society’s ills could be
cured by efficient government. The Services who ruled India claimed
that their government was efficient and the problems of the people
were being solved. But in fact they were not. The administration was
efficient in maintaining public order and in the preservation of internal
peace. It also reduced the sources of tyranny by preventing arbitrary use
of power by the native princes, or on a lower level, by the landlords.
It was, however, a palliative government, not a therapeutic one. In the
third decade of the nineteenth century, the British had attempted large-
scale reforms in Indian society, but they had learned, through the
Mutiny of 1857, that it was safer not to interfere with the totems and
taboos of the Hindu world. They later learned that the new nationalism
was quite prepared to use the Hindu religion in its attack on the
British and to incite violence in order to preserve Hindu beliefs. In
I®97» for example, British action to prevent the spread of plague was
resisted on religious grounds, and a plague officer was murdered.

In the twentieth century, the men of the Services were still devoted
to India and genuinely concerned with the welfare of those they ruled.
Very few of the rulers of India — as distinct from the British businessmen
1 ^rc bought of their job in terms of personal profit, though
obviously they were not free from the normal human worries about

jg the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

income, pensions, and the expense of their children’s education. When
major changes came after the 1914-18 War, they felt themselves
betrayed and blamed the British government for pandering to Indian
nationalists and their allies in the British Labour party. But it was the
times rather than the British government which had betrayed them
and their self-imposed mission; now, everywhere, the dispossessed
were rising. A few of the men who ruled India tried to resist the tide of
history, and they were helped by certain politicians in Britain. One or
two, at the very end of British rule, committed what can only be
described as treason in order that their Indian friends might evade the
consequences of the transfer of power. Yet even these men behaved as
they did because they believed that what they were doing was in
India’s interests. They were mistaken — and unsuccessful but this was
another example of the peculiar, and at times passionate involvement
with India which was characteristic of the British who ruled it.

Because the men who proclaimed the virtues of British rule were
often, at least on the surface, those most interested in preserving it, their
arguments were accepted not at their real value but as the special plead-
ing of professional reactionaries. Criticism by the socialists and the re-
form-minded was ideological rather than real, but it did reflect the
changing world. Indian civil servants did themselves no good with
their defence of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number , in a world
where the achievement of political rights had come to be regarded as
the passport to a golden age. Nor was their case helped while there
still was an Indian empire, or even after it had ceased to exist — by the
claim that members of the Indian Civil Service were some kind of
supermen, an elite of dedicated rulers. A parallel has been drawn be-
tween these men and Plato’s concept of the Guardians, a disinterested
body of rulers governing only in the light of what was beautiful and
good. Most ICS men certainly believed in Plato’s idea of superiority,
and they very often displayed it in the form of racial arrogance. The
men of the ICS do not need the support of such an extravagant claim,
one which has too many overtones of a pseudo-philosophic ‘divine
right’ to be treated seriously. Generally, they were moderately intelli-
gent men, working under difficult conditions, who kept the adminis-
tration going without resorting to overt cruelty. They were not so
much Guardians as preservers of a system that became more and more
the subject of criticism. Much of the criticism, no doubt, was ill-

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 19

informed and doctrinaire, but it represented irrational forces of great
power and complexity and it was not to be dispersed or disarmed by
statistics, or by the evidence of history, or even by appeals to the
precedents of Classical Greece.

★ * *

There were other rulers in India besides the British civil servants.
Two fifths of India was still divided into states ruled by native princes.
The people of these territories were not British subjects and received
neither the protection of British law nor that of the British parliament.
The states existed because, in the early expansion of the British in India,
military and political exigencies had made allies of some of the native
rulers. Under various treaties, the ruling dynasties had surrendered the
management of their external relations to the British Crown, but,
generally speaking, they were free to rule themselves in any wray they
wished as long as it was neither detrimental to British interests in
India nor over-stepped the bounds of toleration.

At one time, before the Mutiny of 1857, it had been the policy of the
Indian government to annex wherever possible the territories of native
princes, and the manner in w'hich this had been done wras one of the
causes of the revolt. But during the Mutiny most of the princes re-
mained loyal, or at least neutral, and it was decided that no further
annexations would take place. The princely states, some of which were
only a few square miles in extent, were 562 in number and were scat-
tered quite haphazardly all over India. The smaller states were forced
to accept a large measure of British control over their administration,
but the more important states were internally almost completely inde-
pendent. Their relationship W'ith the government of India operated
only through the viceroy as representative of the British Crown. The
states had certain obligations towards the ‘Paramount Powder’, as the
Crown was called. They were, for example, obliged to supply military
forces if required for the defence of India. In the final analysis, they
were not really sovereign; their internal affairs were subject to super-
vision and the Paramount Power could intervene even to the extent of
deposing the ruler, though such intervention was very rare.

Most of the rulers of these states were Hindus but this did not mean
that their subjects were also Hindus. Kashmir, for example had some
three million Muslims and one million Hindus, but the Maharaja w'as

20 the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

a Hindu; Hyderabad, the largest of the states— slightly larger than
Scotland and England put together— had a Muslim ruler, though the
Muslims were outnumbered twelve to one by Hindus. The British had
a sentimental attachment to the native states, a typical nostalgia for past
glories. These ‘kingdoms of yesterday’ claimed to be the true hens of
pre-British India, but, generally speaking, they were islands of medi-
aevalism out of touch with the realities of the modem world.

Until 1919, the autocratic rule of the princes was little different in
principle from the government of British India, and most of the larger
states had adopted British legal and administrative procedures. Origin-
ally, the states were not only isolated from the rest of British India, but
also from each other; they were not permitted to combine in any way.
They were, however, forced to share in a number of non-political
activities. Railways were no respecters of state frontiers, and the gov-
ernment of India would not permit maritime states to levy different cus-
toms dues from those applicable in British India. It was not until 1919
that any suggestion was made that India should be governed other than
in two water-tight compartments, and it was 1935 before any real
attempt was made to involve the princely states in the concept of India

as a whole.

The rulers of the states had many friends among the British who
were responsible for their control, and, as British India moved towards
independence, a number of attempts were made to safeguard the
interests of the princes, interests which were at variance with those of
the rest of India as well as with the expressed intentions of the British
parliament.

4 The Nationalists

The great disadvantage of modem political slogans is their simplicity.
They seem to mean what they say and are easily understood. Because
the Indian nationalist movement used them, talked incessantly about
freedom, liberty, the rights of man, and the general virtues of demo-
cracy, it was thought that the nationalists believed in these slogans and
that Indian nationalism was as simple and uncomplicated as the slogans
themselves. But political slogans are like the sidelights of a vehicle on
a dark night in an unlit street viewed from a considerable distance. The

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 21

lights — themselves recognizable and simple — do not reveal the make,
shape, condition or power of the vehicle, the colour of the upholstery
or the name of the driver. It might not even be a motor vehicle at all,
but a horse-drawn van. Almost all the liberal-democrats and socialists
in Britain and elsewhere who supported the Indian nationalists’
demand for freedom observed the nationalist movement only by the
glow of its sidelight slogans in the dark night of their own doctrine.

Consequently, they knew very little if anything about the true
nature of Indian nationalism. Not that this mattered very much from
their point of view, because support for Indian freedom was a funda-
mental part of the socialist campaign to assert their own political rights.
Empire automatically had a class connotation. It was the symbol of
middle- and upper-class privilege, of exploitation not so much abroad
as at home.

During their period in the wilderness, socialists found Britain’s
dependent empire a valuable political weapon with which to belabour
successive Tory governments. Surprisingly enough, they were not all
Little Englanders, for though they believed Britain would be better off
financially without responsibility for the colonies, they did not want
to sever all connexion with the empire. An empire transformed into an
association of self-governing dominions was the limit of their thinking,
because they wanted Britain to retain in some undefined way the
prestige of empire without the financial drain of ruling it. Above all,
they were advocates of evolution, not revolution. This was partly the
result of their English radical and non-conformist origins and partly
because revolution, after 1917, was associated primarily with com-
munism. Speeches, promises, and advice were what the socialists
offered Indian nationalists. Socialist intellectuals went off to China to
help fight the Japanese, or to Spain in defence of the republic. They did
not go and throw bombs at British governors in India.

The attitudes of British socialist leaders and intellectuals had consider-
able effect upon the thinking, and action, of some of the Indian nationalist
leaders. The advice they gave was always cautious, even constitutional,
because they were fundamentally unrevolutionary themselves. Their
influence, in fact, was to delay Lidia’s freedom rather than to speed
it, for they managed to convince the intellectual leaders of the Indian
nationalist movement that Britain was more likely to listen to con-
stitutional demands than to revolutionary agitation and that, anyway,

,, the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

a Labour government would soon be in power in Britain and
would grant India dominion status. The socialist justification for this
has apparently been confirmed by events. Constitutional demand did
bring constitutional reforms and a socialist government in 1947 did give
India its freedom; but, as this book will show, this is only a superficial
view which is not supported by analysis of the events themselves.

The struggle for freedom in India is inevitably associated with one
particular organization — the Indian National Congress. But it was not
in fact the only expression of Indian nationalism, though it was the
principal stimulus for other streams of nationalist activity. Again, too,
Congress was not a homogeneous political party but a vast rally of
diverse and conflicting elements, all of which exerted their various pres-
sures upon the leaders. Originally Congress had been founded, in 1885,
with the approval of the British government in India as a kind of
middle-class durbar. The durbar was an essential part of the traditional
Indian concept of the autocratic ruler, a sort of levee or reception held
at regular intervals when the ruler’s subjects could appear in person
before him with complaints and petitions.

Before the founding of Congress there had been an organized body
representing Indians of wealth, social position and education. This was
the British India Association, founded in 1851. Generally speaking, the
British India Association was not a progressive body and its members
resisted, whenever possible, any introduction of land reforms. In fact,
most of the Indian educated class consisted of upper-caste men with
landed interests, and the first principal conflict between the govern-
ment of India and this class came when the British sought support from
the mass of the people by proposing reforms in the relationship between
landlord and tenant. Basically, the educated classes’ demand for political
reform was directed at gaining for themselves some control over
government action, so that they might prevent the British from going
ahead with its rather feeble agricultural reforms. It was from among
members of the British India Association that most of the nominated
Indian members of the legislative councils had been chosen. Most of
these members represented land-owning, commercial, and professional
interests, and many of them were lawyers.

The Indian Councils Act of 1892, however, brought a change in the
representation of the educated classes. As there was now at least a form
of election, it was the professional classes who were elected rather than

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 23

the great landowners; the reason for this was that the landed classes
were unwilling to put themselves up for election by popular vote. The
new representatives were mainly lawyers, with doctors, schoolmasters,
traders and money-lenders making up the rest. These men, generally
speaking, had little sympathy with either landlord or tenant.

It is an interesting fact that, throughout the whole of the struggle for
freedom, a large proportion of nationalists came from the legal profes-
sion, and they were possessed of a respect for law which reinforced
other pressures in favour of legitimate means of agitation. By 1899,
according to a confidential government report, almost 40 per cent
(5,442) of the 13,839 delegates to the Indian National Congress were
from the legal profession. The other large groups consisted of 2,629
representing landed interests, and 2,091 from the commercial classes.
The remainder was made up almost entirely of journalists, doctors and
teachers.

Congress, like the British India Association, was opposed to any
reform in tenants’ rights, for although the legal profession might be
indifferent to landlord and peasant alike, much of Congress’s financial
support came from large landed proprietors. The commercial classes
formed another interested party. They felt themselves oppressed, and
believed that British rule did not favour indigenous capitalists. They
were only partly right because, though British rule undoubtedly fav-
oured British business undertakings and did not actively encourage the
growth of indigenous industry, development had been restricted
primarily by lack of Indian capital and enterprise. Furthermore, the
Congress attitude to industrial reform, for example, showed that its
members were no friends of the workers.

Naturally, the professional and business classes were strongly opposed
to the Indian government’s financial policy, and especially to the
priority given to paying interest on loans raised in Britain and to the
charges borne by India for imperial troops and activities outside India.
The nationalists suggested that the cost of administration should be
reduced and that import duties should be imposed on a wide variety of
goods. They were strongly against paying taxes themselves and resisted
any form of direct or indirect taxation. The main burden of providing
revenue for the government of India rested upon those who received
least advantage from it, namely the peasant and the small trader.

The coming together of the educated classes, deprived of higher posts

2^ THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

in the civil service which were reserved for the British, and of the busi-
nessmen who regarded themselves as discriminated against economi-
cally, was of profound importance in the struggle for freedom. It
brought much-needed funds, as well as adding a further pressure in
favour of non-violent reform rather than bloody revolution, for Indian
businessmen also brought the innate conservatism characteristic of
capitalists of all races.

This ‘upper middle-class’ minority— about 300,000 out of
180,000,000 in 1886 — saw representative institutions as the only pos-
sible system which might satisfy its demands. It was not concerned
with whet^r the British government was morally good or bad, but
only with the fact that it was there — depriving educated Indians of
their rightful jobs and profits.

If the business classes were largely conservative by nature, so too were
the lawyers, who were nevertheless genuinely concerned with reform —
a cautious reform in the English tradition.

After 1 870, there was a considerable expansion in English education
among what can only be described as lower middle-class elements, and,
for them too, there was little chance of employment as the number of
clerical jobs in government service or commerce was limited. It was
upon these people that Westernization had a destructive effect. Being
inadequately educated in an alien cultural tradition, they found them-
selves uneasy in their own. They became afraid of Western-style
changes and saw no advantage for themselves in representative govern-
ment, which they anticipated would favour the fully Westernized
upper middle-class in preference to themselves.

The mass of the Indian people, on the other hand, had no such fears ;
there was little likelihood of too many half-educated peasants chasing
too few jobs — on the contrary, they had not been educated at all. They
were not uneasy within their cultural tradition. But they had a growing
suspicion that their religion was in some sort of danger, not from the
British but from the Westernized Indians. Most English-educated
Indians, and especially those in Bengal, looked upon anything Indian
— whether cultural or religious — as barbarous. They had become
emotionally cut off from India and looked upon Hinduism with very
much the same distaste as the British did. They sought to carry out
reforms in Hindu society by legislative action. This was regarded as
treasonable by orthodox Hindus and they cast about for ways to resist

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 2$

the challenge to their traditional order. The most obvious was to
achieve political liberty, to get rid of the British, because it was the
British and their influence on Western-educated Indians who constituted
the main threat to the Hindu way of life. These Hindu nationalists
did not believe in liberal democracy or in representative govern-
ment, only in India for the Indians. They were not concerned with
constitutional reforms, nor were their leaders interested in ‘association’

with British rule. The granting of representative institutions by the
British was, in fact, something to be avoided, for such institutions
would be operated by Westernized Indians, men who were no longer
Hindus but bastard Englishmen. The only answer was revo^ion ; the
British must be thrown into the sea as soon as possible.

When political action and Hindu revivalism joined hands, they were
to give Indian nationalism a mass appeal and to convert Congress from
the narrow expression of minority self-interest into the apparent
spokesman of the Indian people.

The first man to combine Hindu revivalism with active political
agitation was Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) who inspired an era of
religious fanaticism and political violence which lasted until Gandlii
introduced other methods in the early 1920s. But Tilak gave to Indian
nationalism and in particular to Congress a sense of urgent militancy
and an aim — that of swaraj, or independence — which was much more
positive than the colonial self-government which was all the moderate
leaders of his time had hoped for. Tilak can also be regarded as one of
the founders of Pakistan, for he and the other revivalist Hindu leaders —
and, later, Gandhi, who followed in their tradition — used the Hindu
religion politically in such a way that Indian Muslims finally became

convinced that it would be the Hindus who ruled if Congress ever came
to power.

The fact that the new nationalist leaders used religion as a weapon
bolstered the British government’s belief that if representative institu-
tions were granted to India this could only lead to religious discrimin-
ation. That India was made up of many races and that most of her
people were backward and ignorant was not in itself necessarily an
obstacle to the establishment of democratic institutions. The English,
Scots and Welsh had learned to come together in a democratic state.
The United States of America was an even better example of the unity
of a people whose racial origins were of the most diverse. Nor had

25 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

education much to do with it, for, in both Britain and America, the
exercise of the vote had preceded universal education. In India, the
obstacle was religious; the closest parallel is the conflict between Catho-
lics and Protestants in Ireland, where the only solution found to the
problem was partition of the country. In Ireland, too, there was
violence because a religious minority feared that the government at
Westminster would hand the country over to a religious majority.

In India, religious feeling was even deeper, for there religion per-
meates everyday life. The memory of a not too distant past also
remained to inflame the Muslims, who before the British arrived had
ruled India in all the glory of the Mughal empire. Under such emperors
as Akbar, India had been powerful and prosperous and most of the
important and valuable posts had been held by Muslims. But, with the
coming of the British, Mughal power had collapsed and the Muslim
community had failed to reap the advantages offered by British rule.
The British seemed to be prejudiced against them and, quite wrongly,
held them responsible for the Mutiny of 1857* Furthermore the
Muslim community was very much concerned with religious schools
and Muslims therefore did not respond favourably to Western-style
education. It was not until they realized that Hindus were winning the
best available jobs by reason of their Western education that the Mus-
lims changed their attitude. Even then, they did so reluctantly and

The Muslims rapidly became conscious that they were being left
behind, not only in the field of employment but also in constitutional
demands. The activities of the Indian National Congress, which was
composed of India’s educated classes and therefore predominantly
Hindu, only increased the Muslims’ irritation and fear. Muslim
leaders warned them that representative government on the British
model could only lead to Hindu majority rule, and the growing use of
Hindu revivalism for extremist political ends convinced them that
Hindu rule could only result in religious discrimination. In the half-
century before independence came Congress gave them little reason to
change their minds.

hi 1906, when it seemed inevitable that some form of representative
institutions would be granted, the Muslim community formed its own
political organization — the All-India Muslim League. This body never
developed beyond the stage of a ‘self-defence’ association though it

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 27

adapted its tactics to suit changing conditions. It was basically anti-
democratic, but its attempts to protect the interests of Indian Muslims
made it an unconscious ally of the British. The Muslim League’s fight
to prevent the setting-up of representative institutions, however, and
Britain’s anxiety to protect the legitimate rights of minorities, both
served only to increase nationalist demands for independence.

The Indian National Congress blamed the British for inventing and
encouraging Muslim fears of Hindu-majority rule for their own ends,
but, at least as far as the legislators at Westminster were concerned, this
was not the case. Although Congressmen believed the British to be
engaged in deepening communal differences, on the principle of
‘divide and ride’, a Muslim League leader came nearer the truth when
he said at the Round Table conference in 1931, ‘It is the old maxim of
“divide and rule”. But there is a division of labour here. We divide and
you rule.’ With the growing strength of Congress, and the British
apparently indifferent to their fears, Indian Muslims looked outside
India to their co-religionists in other countries. They saw that they were
not alone and, from this discovery, there grew the sense of separate-
ness from the rest of India which led inescapably to partition.

In the meantime, the public voice of Congress still mouthed moderate
constitutional demands. Its leaders ignored Muslim fears and Hindu
revivalism alike. Self-government on the colonial model, such as
existed in Canada and Australia, was their aim. But the moderate
leaders were not only divorced from traditional India, they were also
divorced from reality. Their reasonable demands neither impressed the
government nor excited the public, and their failure to achieve results
only antagonized the new class of young, partly Western-educated
Indians who were suffering acutely from economic and social frustra-
tion. These men turned to Tilak as their leader and produced a new
type of nationalism, a vernacular nationalism, which expressed its
frustrations not in the English language nor in English political ideas
but in the traditional vernaculars of the Hindu religion and of the
Indian masses.

The strength of this new vernacular nationalism was first shown in
1905 when, for sound administrative reasons, the British decided to
divide the vast province of Bengal. This plan provoked large popular
demonstrations organized by the vernacular nationalists and joined
later by the moderates. New methods of demonstration were used,

28 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

including a boycott of British goods and the closing of Indian shops.
Unlike Western political slogans, which were totally meaningless to
the masses, these new methods of agitation were immediately under-
standable. Such methods, of course, demand men to organize them,
and organizers appeared who were mostly members of secret terrorist
societies. However, the success of these popular demonstrations proved
to Congress that it would be possible to create a nationwide movement
on a popular basis and, in 1908, Congress — which had the year before
incorporated many of Tilak’s slogans in its official policy — set up pro-
vincial branches for this very purpose. The boycott of British goods
and the resulting demand for home manufactures incidentally con-
vinced Indian businessmen that organized nationalism could mean
profit for themselves, and an increasing number of them began to
support Congress.

These changes, of course, did not receive the approval of the moder-
ates, and the leadership of Congress was soon divided between moder-
ates and extremists. After several years of strife and intrigue, many of
the moderates left Congress. This did not mean, however, that the
vernacular nationalists were left in control ; other pressures were now
at work which were to convert Congress into a body representing all
the major interests of the Indian people. The leaders had to become
such as would attract the support of all levels of the people.

The 1914-18 War supplied the stimulus for this new stage in the
growth of Congress. The expansion of industry during the war in-
creased the size both of the Indian business community and of the
urban working class, although the war also produced shortages which
pressed heavily upon the mass of the people. There was a short-lived
co-operation between Muslims and Congress when Britain declared
war on Turkey, the principal Islamic state, but the allied powers in
Europe stated that one of the aims of the war was to guarantee self-
determination for all peoples and this led to the British government
promising India representative institutions after the war was over. This
promise was not in fact made merely as part of the propaganda of war
but as recognition of the growing mass support claimed by the Indian
nationalist movement.

In the light of what could only be taken as concessions, as a weaken-
ing— however minor — of the British, it was all the more necessary that
Congress should offer a united front. Fortunately, a leader appeared

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 29

who was capable of rallying all the warring elements in Indian national-
ism. This was M. K. Gandhi, a Hindu of the Vaisya caste— neither
high nor low — who had been partly educated in England. Gandhi had
not lost his Hindu personality because of his Western education. On
the one hand, he could talk to Westernized nationalists in their own
political language, and on the other, he could seem to be the expression
of Hindu traditional values. Gandhi immediately saw the importance
of a mass movement and that the weapon with which it might be
created was the grievances — mainly economic — of the peasant. His
first experiment was with peasant non-cooperation — a refusal to pay
taxes — and peasant resistance of this type soon became an integral part
of Congress action.

Congress organization now at last spread downwards to village level.
After 1920, the lowest level Congress associations elected delegates to
the next up, and so on to the level of the Provincial Congress Com-
mittee. Theoretically at least, Congress was a democratic organization
with clear links between the leaders and the lowliest member in the
village. But this was not so in practice, for, if the principal aim of
independence was to be pursued, it was necessary that the supreme
executive body of Congress — the All-India Congress Committee —
should have sufficient authority to overrule sectional interests. Congress
was organized in such a way that there were distinct channels by which
that authority could send its instructions down to the lowest level.

Mass support, however, brought its own problems because, if that
support was to be held, it was necessary for Congress to champion mass
demands. These were often in conflict with the demands of other
groups within Congress, groups which generally speaking were more
articulate than the masses. There was, therefore, constant disagreement
on strategy and tactics, on programmes, and on ultimate goals. The
Congress leadership was in fact compelled, during lulls between mass
demonstrations, to spend more energy and ingenuity on reconciling
the conflicting interests of Congress members than it did on fighting
the British. If the Second World War had not come along when it did,
bringing independence actually within sight, it is not altogether im-
probable that Congress might have collapsed under the pressure of its
parts.

That Congress did manage to present a united front to the British
was due, in the main, to three things. Firstly, it used the simple

20 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

expedient of pointing to British rule as the primary source of every-
body’s grievances, however much those grievances might contradict
each other. Secondly, there was the figure of Gandhi — the great
indispensable— who was, for the masses, the image of Indian national-
ism and, for the rest of Congress’s sectional interests, the image of that
mass support without which they believed they had no hope of success.
The third source of unity, without which even Gandhi would have
been ineffective, was the growing strength of Congress organization
and propaganda.

Though, after 1920, the face of nationalism in India was very differ-
ent from the one it had shown before, the old forces occasionally in
new disguises were still there, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly
distorting the aims of the leaders. But these leaders, too, were very
different from those who had preceded them. The new men were to
face, and in the end out-face, not the British in India — for they, as the
years went by, played a progressively lesser role — but the legislators in
Westminster. The struggle was no longer to be waged in the obscurity
with which the nineteenth century and Britain’s international prestige
had cloaked India. It was now to take place under the bright lights of a
growing world interest. Nor was it to be expressed in terms of a revo-
lutionary violence directed at throwing the British into the sea. It was
to be a much more subtle and perhaps, in the long run, a more danger-
ous affair for India herself. Congress, under the leadership of Gandhi,
chose to assault not the military power of the British in India, but the
conscience of the British people, to try to make them so ashamed of
what they were doing that they would voluntarily give up their Indian
empire. It was perhaps the most improbable strategy that has ever been
offered to a nationalist movement — and it seemed to work. Why it
did so will be made clear as the events of the last years of British India
unfold.

5 The People

Statesmen, politicians, and historians often refer in their speeches and
writings to ‘the people’ as if this was some homogeneous mass possessed
of one voice proclaiming the desires of the collective will, and one pair
of feet marching inexorably towards one collective goal. Essentially,

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 29

who was capable of rallying all the warring elements in Indian national-
ism. This was M. K. Gandhi, a Hindu of the Vaisya caste — neither
high nor low — who had been partly educated in England. Gandhi had
not lost his Hindu personality because of his Western education. On
the one hand, he could talk to Westernized nationalists in their own
political language, and on the other, he could seem to be the expression
of Hindu traditional values. Gandhi immediately saw the importance
of a mass movement and that the weapon with which it might be
created was the grievances — mainly economic — of the peasant. His
first experiment was with peasant non-cooperation — a refusal to pay
taxes — and peasant resistance of this type soon became an integral part
of Congress action.

Congress organization now at last spread downwards to village level.
After 1920, the lowest level Congress associations elected delegates to
the next up, and so on to the level of the Provincial Congress Com-
mittee. Theoretically at least, Congress was a democratic organization
with clear links between the leaders and the lowliest member in the
village. But this was not so in practice, for, if the principal aim of
independence was to be pursued, it was necessary that the supreme
executive body of Congress — the All-India Congress Committee —
should have sufficient authority to overrule sectional interests. Congress
was organized in such a way that there were distinct channels by which
that authority could send its instructions down to the lowest level.

Mass support, however, brought its own problems because, if that
support was to be held, it was necessary for Congress to champion mass
demands. These were often in conflict with the demands of other
groups within Congress, groups which generally speaking wrcre more
articulate than the masses. There was, therefore, constant disagreement
on strategy and tactics, on programmes, and on ultimate goals. The
Congress leadership was in fact compelled, during lulls between mass
demonstrations, to spend more energy and ingenuity on reconciling
the conflicting interests of Congress members than it did on fighting
the British. If the Second World War had not come along when it did,
bringing independence actually within sight, it is not altogether im-
probable that Congress might have collapsed under the pressure of its
parts.

That Congress did manage to present a united front to the British
was due, in the main, to three things. Firstly, it used the simple

22 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

they were concerned with their own welfare above all others and were
at last in a position to demand that their wishes be given priority.

The people of India, too, had begun to express themselves but they
were denied the respectable, the parliamentary, means of doing so.
There was no outlet for their opinions but agitation. In Britain, the
working classes had sought a means of demanding the solution of
their economic grievances, and they had found it already present in the
British political system. In India, after 1920, the masses turned to Con-
gress. On the surface, this seems both simple and natural. It had its
parallels in Europe and America. There have been peasant revolts and
industrial upheavals throughout history — all with sound economic
bases. But the parallels are not exact. In Europe, the working class
achieved entry into the political system because the individuals who
made up that class had some identity of interests, and there was nothing
in the social order, or in their religion, to inhibit them from organizing
themselves to express those interests. In India, the situation was very
different. There the social order was divisive, seeking to separate each
man from all except those inside his own group. The Hindu religion
sanctified the existing social order by saying that a man’s position in it
— the caste to which he belonged — was fixed irrevocably by forces
outside his control, or that of anyone else. Acceptance, not social action,
was, and to an alarming extent still is, the basis of Indian society. It was
Gandhi, with the success of his first civil disobedience campaigns, who
showed the peasant that economic grievances could be remedied by
action. In doing this, he not only gave Congress the means with which
to fight the British but opened a crack in the armour of the Hindu
social order.

The two peoples — of Britain and India — had a profound effect upon
the forces which controlled their destiny, and in at least one sphere,
they were unconscious allies. Both were engaged in a struggle against
the same privileged class, the British who ruled in Britain and who also
ruled in India. From the British people’s point of view, the Indian
empire ceased to exist because they became indifferent to its symbolic
image. As long as they remained without a voice in their own destiny,
the British people accepted the glory of an empire on which the sun
never set and from the possession of which some glamour rubbed off
upon their shabby lives. But when they saw, or believed they saw, that
its very existence was a brake upon their own progress, they became

THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 33

indifferent to its mystique and called for its abandonment, disguising
their self-interest under the cloak of democratic slogans. In India, the
British had continued to rule only by consent. In the case of the artic-
ulate classes, this had been the consent of respect ; for the mass of the
people, it was the consent of indifference. If man’s position was ordained
by the gods, what did it matter who ruled? But the respect of the
Indian middle class did not survive the end of the First World War, and
in the twenty years that followed, the masses ceased to be indifferent.
As the British people stopped being interested in their empire, the
people of India began to be conscious of their country, and came to
believe that their economic problems did not result from the will of
the gods but from the policy of the British.

PART TWO

The Struggle

‘non-violence . . . does not
mean submission to the will of
the evildoer .... It means the
putting of one’s whole soul
against the will of the tyrant.’

M. K. Gandhi

‘we have to live in the present.’

Subhas Chandra Bose

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INDIA IN 1945'

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l For Moral Effect

The war that broke out in Europe in August 1914 brought about a
truce in nationalist agitation against the British; there was in fact an
outburst of enthusiasm which seems today, in the light of subsequent
events, almost incomprehensible. But many nationalists thought that
helping the British would result in a victory which might bring some
tangible reward. This belief was encouraged by the allied statesmen’s
insistence that the war was being fought to make the world safe for
democracy, and self-determination for all peoples was the battle cry;
unfortunately, the Indian nationalists were naive enough to believe this
applied to them. At that time, nationalist opinion was directed towards
achieving self-government within the British empire and this, they
thought, was comparatively little to ask. Recruits flocked to the army
— some 1,200,000 volunteered — and there were spontaneous contribu-
tions to war loans and the like. The British reduced their garrison in
India to 15,000 men, and many British administrators going off to
fight handed over their jobs to Indian subordinates. In this way, two of
the nationalist demands — the reduction of the ‘army of occupation’
and more, higher posts for Indians — were unintentionally granted.

But, like everyone else, Indians believed the war would soon be
over and, when it dragged on, popular enthusiasm waned. This was
partly due to the government’s inability to make use of its newly found
popularity. The British government, intent only upon governing
whether Indians liked it or not, was unable to channel enthusiasm into
productive endeavour. Recruiting declined, and money was no longer
freely lent. The British government in India, being composed mainly
of men with no experience of, and little inclination to learn, the
mechanics of modem government, had never been particularly

37

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

efficient. It could rule by thumb but it was not very' good at organiza-
tion. Before 1914, there had been a number of serious administrative
breakdowns ; the requirements of war intensified inefficiency'', and soon
the Indian army in Mesopotamia found its supply lines from India in
hopeless chaos. The government was compelled to impose restrictions
and pressures upon Indian businessmen which soon convinced them
that they should— in the interests of their own business — support the
nationalist movement. Further, the war against Turkey — whose ruler
was the Caliph of Islam — seriously disturbed Indian Muslims, and in
1916, Tilak, who had modified his more revivalist views, was able to
persuade the Muslim League to join Congress in the ‘Lucknow Pact .
The success of Tilak also eliminated the influence of the moderates in
the nationalist movement and certainly made it easier for Gandhi to
change the direction of the movement when he succeeded Tilak
in 1920.

The Lucknow Pact brought considerable nationalist activity' through-
out India, and the government in London, worried about the course
of the war in Europe as Russia seemed about to collapse, decided that
some holding action must be taken. Obviously, repression was out of
the question — there were insufficient British troops available for the
job. A carrot must be substituted for the stick. There was ample excuse
for London to interfere in the Indian government’s affairs - a govern-
ment which, in the words of E. S. Montagu, secretary of state for
India, had proved itself ‘too wooden, too iron, too inelastic, too ante-
diluvian, to be of any use for . . . modern purposes’. This speech
naturally pleased Indian nationalists who had been saying the same
thing for some time.

When Montagu arrived in India in October 1917 to see for himself,
he was received bv some nationalists almost as a liberator. It was the
first time that anyr member of a British government had gone to India
to find out the opinions of Indians themselves. The result of the secre-
tary of state’s inquiry was published under the title of ‘Report on
Indian Constitutional Reforms’ in the summer of 1918. This document
has been overshadowed by the failure of the reforms it advocated, but
it enshrined a new and quite revolutionary idea — that it was, in the
words of Gladstone, ‘liberty' alone which fits men for liberty'’. For the
first time, the flatulent rhetoric of Macaulay was pushed aside and a
declaration of faith in the ability of the Indian people to operate

THE STRUGGLE 39

responsible self-government was explicitly stated. The report, in fact,
rejected the strictures Lord Morley had made at the time of the 1909
reforms and expressed a belief that parliamentary government could
work in India. This change of attitude stemmed firstly from the natural
belief that liberal democracy, as practised in Britain, was the best of all
forms of government (and it had already proved impossible to convince
Indian nationalists that there might be a better), and secondly from the
fact that parliamentary government was what the nationalists were ask-
ing for. If a carrot was to be used, there was no doubt that it had to be
a real one.

Unfortunately, fine phrases do not of themselves create a workable
system. There remained still the problem of minorities and, in particu-
lar, the fear of the Muslims that representative government would
mean Hindu domination. In India, these fears had to some extent been
allayed by the Lucknow Pact — which had necessitated concessions by
both sides — in which Congress had acquiesced to the establishment of
separate electorates for Muslims. Britain’s attitude, however, was com-
plicated by that often misunderstood love of the underdog which is
characteristic of the British approach to politics. In spite of the Luck-
now Pact many British statesmen firmly believed that a Hindu major-
ity would discriminate against smaller groups if it had the opportunity
and they consequently sought to give constitutional protection to these
groups. In his report, Montagu felt himself justified in keeping separate
electorates, but only for the largest minorities — the Muslims and
Sikhs. When, however, his Act passed through the British parliament
in 1919, separate representation was extended to Indian Christians,
Anglo-Indians (Eurasians), and Europeans. These additions almost
certainly resulted from members of the Indian Civil Service lobbying
powerful interests in Britain. By continuing the principle of separate
electorates, the administration hoped to keep the nationalist movement
divided and to maintain its own assertion that the Indian National
Congress was not representative of the wishes of all the Indian people.
When the fmal Act was promulgated, the government of India was
able to relax in the knowledge that the actual effect of the reforms
would be to leave authority where it had always been — in the hands of
the British.

The major change brought in by these reforms was embodied in the
principle of ‘dyarchy’, the division of powers, encumbered rather than

40 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

supported by a delicate system of checks and balances. The central
executive remained responsible to no one but the secretary of state in
London, but legislation was in theory to be the function of a new
central assembly and a council of state, both with elected majorities
but including also an ‘official’ or nominated bloc. Any legislative author-
ity which these bodies might have, however, was rendered nugatory
by die fact that such legislation as they might refuse to pass could still
be ‘certified’ by the viceroy and thus become law. The provinces were
also to have legislative councils, and certain responsibilities were to be
assigned from the Centre to provincial control. This devolution cov-
ered both finance and administration and in some measure the provinces
became self-governing, though real power — in revenue legislation and
the control of the armed forces — remained at the Centre. Administra-
tion at the provincial level was divided into two areas; ‘reserved
subjects, including finance, justice and the police, remained under the
control of the governor, while the ‘transferred’ subjects, such as educa-
tion and public health, were entrusted to ministers responsible to the
legislative council. The franchise was restricted by a sliding scale of
property qualifications, which meant that the number who could vote
in provincial council elections was over five million, in elections for
the central legislative assembly nearly one million, and in the case of
the council of state a select group of some seventeen thousand. The
population of India at that time was over three hundred million.

The nationalists, however, were divided over these reforms. Some —
though not very many — welcomed them as ‘the Magna Carta’ of
India but the majority believed that they did not go nearly far enough.
One of those who thought the changes indicated a new British attitude
to India was Mahatma Gandhi, but events were soon to destroy his
faith in the solenm pledges and promises of the British government.

The period between Montagu’s visit and the actual passing of the Act
had witnessed events in India which have a parallel only in the after
effects of the Mutiny of 1857. The government of India had begun to
feel itself menaced by revolutionary activity, though in fact this illu-
sion was only the product of efficient nationalist propaganda. Never-
theless, the government felt itself handicapped by the existing security
regulations, and set up a committee under Mr Justice Rowlatt to in-
quire into what it called ‘criminal conspiracies’, that is, terrorist activi-
ties. The Rowlatt report was published shortly after the appearance of

THE STRUGGLE 4I

the Montagu-Chelmsford report, and together they made rather odd
reading. On the one hand, the British at Westminster were envisaging
some delegation of powers, while on the other, the British in Delhi
were reinforcing their authority with all the apparatus of the police
state trial of political cases without jury, and the weapon of summary
internment. Naturally, Indians saw this as giving with one hand and
slapping down with the other.

The end of the war had brought back the old administrators— sullen

with the prospect of slow promotion after the excitements of war, but

determined to treat the war as merely an interlude in the happy

superiority of British life in India. To Indians, no longer convinced of

their inferior position, it seemed that the worst features of the British

occupation came back with the old administrators, and that the

Sedition Acts which followed the Rowlatt report were to usher

in a new period of repression. To the apprehensions of the educated

classes was now added a further dimension of unrest, this time

amongst those who had previously been unaffected by the nationalist
struggle.

The influenza epidemic which raged in Europe in 1918 had swept

across India and resulted in some twelve million deaths. In 1918, too,

there had been a poor harvest and a consequent rapid rise in prices.

Indian soldiers, who had been rather hastily demobilized for fear that

they might use their weapons against their officers, had taken their

grievances back to the villages. In the cities, despite enormous profits

made by industrialists both British and Indian, wages were kept low

while the conditions under which the workers lived became progres-
sively worse.

Feelings of unease produced the semblance of a united front against
the government. Among the peasants, no real sense of the national
Strugglc as such ever appeared. To this day, they form an inert mass,
f ted sometimes into activity by a man capable of giving direction to
inchoate feelings of oppression. Such a man was Mohandas Karain-
chand Gandhi, who had returned to India from South Africa in 1915.
As late as July 1918 he was still a moderate, believing that the achieve-
ment of equal partnership within the empire would constitute ‘free-
°m . He even took part in recruiting campaigns for the Indian Army,
nt the end of the war and the return of old, familiar faces to the

administration u ^ f iM Jia j j ^

42 the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

her support to Britain’s war by specious and empty promises. Further-
more, like many other Indians, he thought that President Wilson
really believed in self-determination for all and assumed that the only
great non-imperial power in the world would look with sympathy
upon India’s aspirations. Unfortunately, the allies never intended self-
determination to refer to anyone outside Europe, where the splitting
up of Austro-Hungary demanded some high-flown justification.

Under Gandhi’s leadership, Congress now began a campaign against
the so-called Rowlatt Acts. Their straightforward provisions were
distorted by extensive propaganda throughout the countryside into
the most ogreish of interferences in the fife of the people. Rumours
were spread that under one provision the Acts required inspection of
a man and a woman before marriage, and that under another they
restricted to two the number of plough-bullocks a peasant could own.
Once again, Tilak’s belief, that any lie was justified if it helped the
national struggle, was to gain political currency. Gandhi added to the
revolutionary movement two singular techniques, both essentially
derived from the Hindu traditional conceptions of Satyagraha, the vow
to hold to the truth, and Aliiwsa, the doing of no harm. From these
he produced the idea of passive resistance and its instrument, the hartal,
a day of fast and suspension of business which was the equivalent of a
strike in an industrial society but at the same time a traditional Hindu
method of protest. The use of these ancient weapons for modem ends
was Gandhi’s prime contribution to the technique of revolution.

In March and April 1919, the pressures of unemployment and high
prices, the return of soldiers to the insecurity of their former lives, and
the renewed arrogance of returning officials, precipitated outbursts of
popular indignation, very few of which were the products of extremist
organization. Rioting was almost entirely confined to the Punjab and
western India, and the mobs who attacked isolated Europeans and
government buildings did not appear to have cither leaders or specific
objectives. Most of the rioting in Delhi, Lahore, Amritsar and else-
where, was characterized by racial hatred. The government arrested
Gandhi on his way to the Punjab in April, and this provoked a riot in
the mill town of Ahmadabad, where he was well known and loved.
He was released and helped to restore order.

On 1 5 April, martial law was declared in the Punjab in consequence
of a deed which became one of the great rallying cries of Indian nation-

THE STRUGGLE

43

alism. Amritsar, a city of some 300,000 inhabitants and the chief
religious centre of the Sikhs, stands about 250 miles north-west of
Delhi. There, on 10 April, two nationalist leaders were arrested and
deported. A large crowd attempted to enter the European cantonment
and, on being turned away, began rioting in the city. Two banks were
attacked, railway stations set on fire, four Europeans were murdered
and others attacked, including a woman missionary who was left for
dead. The military, under one General Dyer, restored order and all
public meetings and assemblies were declared illegal. Nevertheless, on
13 April a meeting gathered in a large enclosed space known as the
Jallianwalla Bagh. When he heard of this, General Dyer went person-
ally to the spot with ninety Gurkha and Baluchi soldiers and two
armoured cars, with which he blocked the only exit. Then, without
warning, he ordered his men to open fire on the densely packed crowd,
and, on his own admission, fired 1,605 rounds before he withdrew,
ordering the armoured cars to remain and prevent anyone from leaving
or entering the Bagh. Official figures gave 379 dead and 1,200
wounded. Dyer’s action was approved by the provincial government.
The following day, a mob rioting and burning at another spot was
bombed and machine-gunned from aircraft. On 15 April martial law
was declared and not lifted until 9 June. During this period, Indians
were forced to walk on all fours past the spot where the woman
missionary had been attacked, and, according to the report of the
Hunter Commission which inquired into the disturbances, public
floggings were ordered for such minor offences as ‘the contravention
of the curfew order, failure to salaam to a commissioned officer, for
disrespect to a European, for taking a commandeered car without
leave, or refusal to sell inilk, and for similar contraventions.’

The commission of inquiry from whose report this quotation is
taken was set up in October 1919 with four British and four Indian
members. Three of the British were members of the civil service, and
the Indians were men of moderate opinion. All criticized the actions of
General Dyer — but in such mild phrases as ‘unfortunate’ and ‘injudi-
cious’. The Indian belief that the old repressive ways were again to be
imposed was reinforced by General Dyer’s testimony, for he made it
clear in his evidence that he had gone down to the Jallianwalla
Bagh with the intention of setting a ferocious example to the rest
of India.

44 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

‘I fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed, and I consider this is
the least amount of firing which would produce the necessary moral and wide-
spread effect it was my duty to produce if I was to justify my action. If more
troops had been at hand, the casualties would have been greater in proportion.
It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of produc-
ing a sufficient moral effect from a military point of view not only on those who
were present, but more especially throughout the Punjab.’

Though the government of India vehemently dissociated itself from
such a policy of intimidation, Dyer was expressing the general opinion
of most of the civil and military in India. Dyer was removed from his
command, but his actions and presumably his motives were supported
by a large section of the British press as well as by members of parlia-
ment and others, and a sum of .£26,000 was subscribed as a testimonial
for this fine example of a gallant British soldier. It is not difficult to
understand the very special position that the massacre of Amritsar
holds in the minds of Indians. In British-Indian relations, it was a turn-
ing point more decisive even than the Mutiny. Henceforth, the struggle
was to permit of little compromise, and the good faith of British con-
cessions was always to be in doubt.

The affair at the Jallianwalla Bagh certainly had ‘a moral effect’,
particularly upon Gandhi. For him, there was now no possibility of
compromise with the British and he declared that ‘co-operation in any
shape or form with this satanic government is sinful’. The last years of
British India were ushered in to the sound of General Dyer’s guns.

2 Non-cooperation

Gandhi’s reaction to government oppression was essentially emotional.
The affair at the Jallianwalla Bagh quite rightly assaulted his conscience.
His response was to develop a system that might be called ‘conscience
in action’ and, because it was successful. Congress never became a
truly revolutionary movement; Gandhi remained round its neck like
the Ancient Mariner’s albatross inhibiting its actions, dividing its
purpose, confusing the genuine revolutionaries and ultimately ensuring
the partition of India. The explanation of the latter is simple. Gandhi
had no liking for politics, though of necessity many of his ideas were
expressed in political terms. He was a religious reformer whose main

THE STRUGGLE

45

pre-occupation was with changing the Hindu social order. British
government, in his opinion, was not only immoral but alien and he
believed that reform could only be brought about with the support
of an Indian administration. He had no faith in Western liberal demo-
cracy, an extremely nebulous view of the nature of modem govern-
ment, and very little awareness of the mainsprings of economic hfe.
But he was a man who could exercise almost hypnotic influence upon
the most diverse of characters, and his main effect on them was to drain
away any revolutionary fervour they might have had.

Gandhi chose his lieutenants with great care, for, despite his mystical
approach to life, he was an unerringly shrewd judge of men and events.
To organize Congress into an efficient and militant machine for his
reformist purposes, he chose a man of peasant stock, who, although he
was Western-educated, was still near enough to the mass of the Indian
people to be accepted by them. This was Vallabhbhai Patel, who
represented a new type of nationalist — the party organizer — and whose
work in welding Congress into a whole ensured that when indepen-
dence finally came it would stand the strain of transition from nation-
alist movement to political party. The other leader was Jawaharlal
Nehru, a Harrow-educated aristocrat with Fabian-socialist ideas.
Nehru was valuable because he was a Brahmin who at the same time
was ‘progressive’ in a Western sense and could rally the more modern-
ist young men behind him. Gandhi’s choice was astute. Patel was not
a thinker but a worker. Nehru was a thinker but not really a man of
decisive action. The British feared Nehru because of his background
and his socialism but they made the mistake of thinking he was an
extremist. Gandhi knew better and, though Nehru often criticized
Gandhi for his reactionary ways, he never broke away from him into
genuine revolutionary activity. With these two men behind him,
Gandhi could carry on with his great experiment in mass action. Only
one outstanding personality took a different and violent path, and, in a
sense, India owes more to him than to any other man — even although
he seemed to be a failure. In the period between the wars, although he
became president of Congress, his influence was small. It was only after
the outbreak of war with Japan in 1941 that the drama of Subhas
Chandra Bose was to begin.

In 1920, India was in a ferment. Indian Muslims were angry over the
terms of the peace treaty with Turkey, and Gandhi, now the dominant

4<5 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

figure in Congress, sought to create out of this anger a united front
against the British. The instruments that Gandhi chose were ‘non-
cooperation’ and ‘civil disobedience’. For his first act of non-coopera-
tion, Gandhi tried to persuade Congress to boycott the elections under
the new constitution. There were, however, plenty of moderate
nationalists — now established in a new Liberal party — willing to stand
for office so the boycott proved to the the first stage not so much of
‘non-cooperation’ as of positive assistance to the British administrators
ill India. Nothing could be better from their point of view than that
the new assemblies should consist of men dedicated to slow constitu-
tional advance. From the Congress viewpoint, the boycott was an
utter failure. In disgust a number of Congressmen, lead by C. R. Das
and Pandit Motilal Nehru, formed a new Swaraj (freedom) party within
Congress and fought the 1925 elections.

Gandhi’s first exercise in ‘civil disobedience’, though successful, soon
degenerated into violence and he called off the campaign. The violence
however, could not be called off and after a particularly ferocious
rebellion by Muslim peasants in South India, directed not against the
government but against Hindus, the fragile thread of self-interest
joining Hindus and Muslims snapped. Extremists from both sides now
began to organize large-scale rioting, and, from 1922 onwards, bloody
conflicts between Hindus and Muslims became a regular feature of
Indian life. Gandhi antagonized Congress by publicly confessing the
failure of the civil disobedience movement and he was only preserved
from utter defeat by being arrested by the British. He was sentenced to
six years imprisonment, but was released on grounds of ill-health after
serving only one.

Gandhi’s contribution to the nationalist movement after his release
was almost entirely confined to praying and advocating the virtues of
hand-spinning. Though the latter was given a certain propaganda
value by the boycott of foreign cloth and the weaving of home-spun
as a sort of nationalist uniform, it was essentially an example of Gandhi s
naivetd about economics. Certainly it had little value in the struggle
against the British when Gandhi insisted that one of the qualifications
for membership of Congress would be proof of spinning a fixed
quota of yam. Many thought Gandhi’s preoccupation with spin-
ning ludicrous. As the great Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore,
replied when Gandhi advised him to use the spinning wheel for

THE STRUGGLE

47

half an hour a day. ‘Why not eight and a half hours if it will help the
country?’

The British felt that they had little to fear from Gandhi himself, for
they soon recognized him for what he was — an anti-Western reformer.
As long as Gandhi was in control of Congress, they knew they had an
ally. As long as civil disobedience remained non-violent, it did not
greatly worry the government. Who was hurt by non-cooperation
anyway? Only the Indians. Gandhi’s whole aim was to minimize
violence; the government’s was the same. They were still capable of
suppressing a few outbreaks of small-scale violence, but if once Gandhi
ceased to dominate Congress, the machine he had built up might well
be used by more dynamic and violent people. A full-scale rebellion
could not be crushed. So the government obliged Gandhi by treating
him with considerable respect — -jailing him occasionally to keep up
appearances — while they took much more positive action against
terrorists and those Western-style revolutionaries whom they really
feared.

The Swaraj party, which won a number of seats in the elections of
*925. soon found itself corrupted by close association with the adminis-
tration, and some of its members even became prepared to accept office.
This was a long way from the party’s original intention of making
government impossible by holding up legislation. In 1926 the leading
Swarajists left the assemblies. Congress, in Gandhi’s words, was
passing through midnight gloom’.

Attempts to embarrass the British from within the assemblies had
failed. Civil disobedience had been called off when it reached the edges
of rebellion. Gandhi, who had sought to blackmail the British through
an assault on their consciences, had been repulsed. ‘An Englishman, he
had once told an English friend, ‘never respects you until you stand up
to him. Then he begins to like you. He is afraid of nothing physical,
but he is very mortally afraid of his own conscience if you ever appeal
to it and show him to be in the wrong. He docs not like to be rebuked
for wrong doing at first; but lie will think it over and it will get hold
of him and hurt him till he docs something to put it right, hi this, as
in many of his other beliefs, Gandhi was wrong. I11 India, the moral
content of British rule could not be reached by blackmail, for it had
become petrified into a system, hi Britain, there was merely indiffer-
ence. In fact, the conscience of the British would have been much more

48 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

quickly aroused if there had been widespread rebellion in India and a
consequent attempt to suppress it. Gandhi and his methods were not
understood. All that was recognized was that he was harmless.

In November 1927, the Times of India wrote of the ‘completeness of
the Congress collapse, the utter futility of the Congress creed, and a
total absence among Congress supporters of a single responsible politi-
cal idea’. And this seemed to be the truth.

3 Marking Time

The continuance of Hindu-Muslim conflict gave what the nationalists
believed to be a further proof that religious antagonisms were being
used by the government for its own ends. The viceroy, Lord Irwin, in
his address to the legislative assembly in August 1927, warned Indians
that self-government could only lead to civil war. That the viceroy
further suggested calling a conference in an attempt to bring Hindus
and Muslims together, seemed only a Machiavellian ruse. A conference
was held but it produced nothing more than admirable sentiments.
Congress appealed for toleration and, in the streets of the cities, Hindus
and Muslims went on murdering each other.

But other events were in the air. The Act of 1919 had provided for
a commission of inquiry after ten years to review the working of the
Act. In November 1927, the commission arrived in India. The date had
been brought forward primarily because it seemed possible that a
Labour government might be in office in 1929, and at least one member
of the Conservative cabinet actually believed that the Labour party
meant what it said about India’s right to self-government. Far better,
thought Lord Birkenhead, the secretary of state for India, to set up the
commission early and give the impression that the Conservatives too
were interested in India, so interested as to be prepared to bring for-
ward the date by nearly two years. It was this same Birkenhead who
had been the only member of the cabinet to oppose the reform of 1919.
and he was determined that there would be no more if he could help it.
So that the commission could be kept as much on his side as possible, it
had to consist of members of the British parliament. The Labour party
co-operated by choosing only obscure back benchers as their repre-
sentatives. But one of these was a certain Clement Attlee, and his

THE STRUGGLE 49

experiences were to have direct effect on the derisions he took nearly
twenty years later as prime minister. The chairman of the commission
was Sir John Simon, a lawyer delighting — if such a warm attitude can
be attributed to such a cold temperament — in the passionless world of
legal precedent. He was an ideal choice, for it was unlikely that even
the vaguest suggestion of any sort of radical view would ever cross his
mind.

The British in India were delighted at the all-British composition
of the commission. Indians, on the other hand, held it to be racial dis-
crimination. It seems probable that senior British officials hoped the
exclusion of Indians would provoke criticism from the Hindu Con-
gress, to which Muslims would react by supporting the commission,
and that in turn, Congress fears of Muslim influence would prevent
Congress from boycotting it. If this was indeed so, it merely confirms
how little the administration understood the immense change that had
taken place in Indian nationalism since 1919.

Gandhi remained quiet but Congress did not, for it viewed the com-
mission as an insult that could be used to revive Congress purpose once
again. The younger Nehru put forward a number of resolutions in the
Madras session of Congress, and all of them were passed including one
which called, not for dominion status but for independence. Nehru,
however, suspected that his resolutions were accepted because they
were not understood, and he was probably right. In the meanwhile,
virtually all shades of Indian opinion had united against the commis-
sion. The Muslim League, however, was divided, and one group
headed by M. A. Jinnah supported a Congress decision to boycott the
commission. ‘Jallianwalla Bagh was physical butchery,’ he said. The
Simon Commission is the butchery of our soul.’

The government of India, now seeking some way to appease Indian
opinion, suggested that the commission should associate itself with a
body of representatives from the Indian legislative assemblies. The
London Times thought this too generous, and even Attlee apparently
thought it perfectly reasonable. The nationalists rejected it. But in the
first two months of its visit, the commission was met by only a rather
half-hearted boycott, and a less refrigerated personality than Simon
niight have broken it with a little display of human warmth. He had
not, however, been chosen to be friendly to Indians. He even believed
that the government of India was hostile to him, as it did not prevent

50 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

such demonstrations as there were. However, this calm did not last and
demonstrations increased. A time bomb was set off in a train when the
commission arrived in Bombay, and the police began to act against
demonstrators. In one scuffle a veteran nationalist, Lala Lajpat Rai, who
was already fatally ill, received a blow and died soon afterwards.

The commission continued its ‘blood-red progress , as Gandhi
described it, throughout India, understanding little of what they saw.
Congress published a report calling for immediate dominion status and
outlining, in considerable detail, the sort of constitution the nationalists
required. The report was submitted to an All-Party conference in
August 1928 and immediately resulted in a schism. Jawaharlal Nehru
and his friends would not vote for it as it would commit them to the
demand for dominion status. The report’s attempt to solve the com-
munal’ problem only exacerbated it, and the Muslims now closed their
ranks, demanding the continuance of separate electorates and a federal
constitution in which Muslim-majority areas would have complete
autonomy.

Gandhi had viewed the report as the instrument of an ‘honourable
compromise’ with the British, yet the instrument had broken even
before it could be used. But once again the character of the younger
Nehru displayed its weakness. Under pressure from Gandhi, he agreed
to wait and see if the British would accept the report by the end of
1929. If they did not, then would be the time to organize civil dis-
obedience. This was a tactical error, for it served a warning upon the
government of India without having any effect upon the government
in London. The Muslim League also took it as a warning. Jinnah now
became the dominant figure in the League and the road to the partition
of India opened up. ‘This,’ said Jinnah, ‘is the parting of the ways, and
he was right. Hindu-Muslim conflict was to continue to the very end
and its legacy still divides India and Pakistan today.

Lord Irwin, the viceroy at that time, was a deeply religious man who
reacted emotionally to what he believed to be the essentially moral
content of Gandhi’s ideas. He was prepared to meet him — ‘taking tea
with treason’, as it was described — and to attempt to discuss issues with
him. Gandhi, however, made the mistake of thinking that Irwin s
religion would inhibit him from behaving as the head of an adminis-
tration responsible only to the British parliament. Irwin was the pris-
oner of the system and, in the fmal analysis, basically without real

THE STRUGGLE

51

power of decision. Nevertheless, Irwin’s reasonableness convinced
Gandhi that his own methods were right. The government, however,
believed that Gandhi was no longer in control of the nationalist move-
ment. It therefore prepared itself for the coming battle. The situation
was in fact growing more dangerous every day and was worsened by
considerable industrial unrest behind which the government believed
there was communist influence. The government of India arrested a
number of communists, including two Englishmen, and after a scries
of dubious legal manoeuvres designed to ensure that the men would be
convicted, brought them to trial. The arrest of the communist leaders,
however, made little difference to the organization of terrorism which
was in progress, and the government was in fact faced with a revolu-
tionary conspiracy, though it was not as yet unduly alarmed. But it
made its preparations and kept a watchful eye, through informers and
spies, on the various nationalist organizations.

Irwin had learned that the key to an evolutionary approach to
Indian self-government was Gandhi, and that he should make some
approach to strengthen Gandhi’s position. The iron hand was not to be
put aside — on the contrary, it was to be displayed; but a velvet glove
was needed to hide its nakedness. Irwin’s first step was to make a state-
ment unprecedented in viceregal history. He stated that he had a
double duty’, that is, to carry on the king’s government and to serve
as an intermediary between India and Britain. He saw no incongruity
in saying this. Irwin suggested to London that Indians should be
associated in some way with the discussions on the Simon report, and
that a declaration should be made that dominion status for India was
also the goal of the British. London accepted the principle of association
but was not prepared to make any statement about dominion status.
In May 1928, Birkenhead made it quite clear to Irwin that the govern-
ment was not prepared to commit itself to any such pledge.

In the summer of 1929, the second Labour government in Britain s
history took office under Ramsay Macdonald. Shortly before taking
office, the new prime minister had declared *1 hope that within a period
of months rather than years there will be a new dominion added to the
Commonwealth of our Nations, a dominion which will find sclf-
mspcct as an equal within the Commonwealth. I refer to India . Now
everything seemed set for Indian self-government. Labour leaders had
actually talked of it. In October 1929, Lord Irwin reiterated in a rather

^2 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

vaguely worded announcement that dominion status was indeed the
goal. Trust between Indians and the British, which had been thought
irrevocably dead, now, like some Lazarus, revived. Gandhi praised
Irwin’s sincerity and called for a positive response. Irwin called a con-
ference of various nationalist leaders, including Jinnah. It met on the
same morning as a bomb destroyed part of the viceregal train. Gandhi
stated that Congress members were there only on the assurance that a
conference would be called to frame a dominion constitution. Irwin
was not empowered to promise this. Congress leaders went away,
realizing at last that the rhetoric of politicians out of office bears little
resemblance to their policy when they achieve it. As one Congress
leader had said even before the Labour government took office, ‘first
we believed in the British officials as a whole; then in higher officials;
then in the viceroy; then in the British government; then parliament,
then in the Labour party. All have failed. Now we can only believe in

our own efforts’.

4 Stage Lightning and Teapot Thunder

Congress decided to have nothing to do with the so-called Round
Table conference which the British Labour government had decided to
summon in 1930. It now demanded independence without any quali-
fication of dominion status and decided upon a campaign of civil dis-
obedience, but these resolutions were passed in face of considerable
opposition which was overcome only by the still immense prestige of
Gandhi. ‘I have but followed the Inner Voices, he proclaimed, and
there were none authoritative enough to question whether he had
heard the Voices aright. The real questioning took the form of con-
tinued terrorist activity — which frightened Congress more than the

government.

On 26 January 1930, at gatherings throughout India, the Congress
flag was unfurled and a pledge of independence taken. Generally
speaking, this symbolic act was greeted with no great enthusiasm. One
distinguished Indian civil servant described the whole business as
‘stage lightning and teapot thunder’ and he was not far wrong.

Gandhi had thought long about the nature of the first act of civil
disobedience. He had learned that, to rouse the masses, it was necessary

THE STRUGGLE

53

to use some symbol they could easily recognize. There was no point in
slogans about dominion status, because the masses had no idea of what
that was. Gandhi hit upon the salt tax. The production of salt was a
government monopoly and, in 1930, half the retail price of salt repre-
sented tax. Everybody used salt, everybody paid the tax. Why not
incite the masses to break the monopoly by making their own salt?
Gandhi sent a letter to the viceroy informing him that, if by 11 March
he had not accepted eleven proposals, Gandhi himself would break the
salt laws. Irwin refused to receive such an ultimatum. On 12 March,
Gandhi marched off from Ahmadabad to the sea, expecting to be
arrested on the way. But the government of India decided to try non-
cooperation itself and instructed the provincial governments not to
arrest Gandhi. If the law was broken, only Gandhi’s lieutenants were
to be arrested and the Mahatma himself was to be denied martyrdom.
Finally, Gandhi reached the sea, ceremonially made his uneatable salt —
and broke the law. The act received great publicity abroad, especially
in America where it appeared to have overtones of the Boston Tea
Party. The government of India, however, had not sent a single police-
man to watch this symbolic act. On the same day, salt was made at
about five thousand meetings throughout India; Congress gave five
million as the official number of those involved, but anything in India
can draw a crowd and it is certain that the majority of those who
attended the ceremonies did so as casual onlookers.

The government went on quietly arresting some of the leaders
Patel on 7 March, Jawaharlal Nehru on 14 April — but Gandhi remained
free, even though the government called his acts ‘rebellion . The
administration did not even deny Congress permission to use the
telegraph and the mails. There was no doubt that the government
sought to protect Gandhi’s control over the civil disobedience move-
ment by eliminating those it thought might give the movement a
violent direction and by acting with moderation so as to keep the effect
of the salt march within bounds.

In part, the government’s policy was a success, for Gandhi s campaign
had so far inhibited other action. Gandhi’s hold on the masses seemed to
drain the vigour from more intelligent and dynamic minds. Though
all the essential motives for modern rebellion existed in India at this
time — chronic unemployment among the educated classes and squalid
living conditions for the industrial proletariat — 1930 was a year almost

54 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

entirely free from labour unrest; Gandhi canalized revolt into quiet
channels, and when he shook his fist, it contained a moral maxim, not
a gun. The authorities were instructed by the government not to use
the military to disperse crowds : Jallianwalla Baghs in every town might
be an incitement to uncontrollable violence. The police had to handle
things with as few strong-arm tactics as possible. Congress, of course,
claimed ‘police brutality’, but most of it was exaggerated— justifiably
so, for it was useful propaganda.

Concealed behind the facade of Gandhi’s great campaign, there were
men who felt that general rebellion was the only way of getting rid of
the British, and these men were preparing to strike a blow. In Bengal,
with its tradition of revolutionary violence, an armoury was attacked
and eight men were killed trying to defend it. On the other side of
India near the north-west frontier, the city of Peshawar exploded into
violence after the arrest of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Congressman known
as the ‘Frontier Gandhi’. Troops had to be called in and heavy casualties
inflicted. Even worse, two platoons of a native regiment of the Indian
Army refused to go to Peshawar to shoot their unarmed brethren. The
ugly spectre of mutiny, a spectre the British had never been free from
since 1857, now seemed to rise again. On 24 April, conditions were so
bad in Peshawar that the British were no longer in control of the city
and it was not until British troops and aircraft arrived twelve days later
that the city was rcoccupied.

The government of India at last decided that it had to arrest Gandhi,
because the impression was growing, mainly amongst government
servants, that the administration was being weak. In fact, there was not
much purpose in keeping Gandhi out of jail any longer. The peasants
who were his instruments were all busy in the fields reaping the
spring harvest and were certainly not going to desert that for mere
civil disobedience. Early in the morning of 5 May, Gandhi was unob-
trusively arrested. There were a few demonstrations — serious ones in
Delhi and Calcutta — and the remaining Congress leaders called on all
Indians to intensify the campaign. The government, freed from the
moderation necessary when backing up Gandhi, replied with sharp
oppression — five years’ rigorous imprisonment for failing to give
information to the police, seven years and a heavy fine for carrying a
Congress flag. The velvet glove was certainly off.

The government of India, however, soon found its attention diverted

THE STRUGGLE 55

to what looked like a new frontier war, for the Muslim tribesmen of
the north-west were on the march again and there was considerable
rioting in towns in the North-west Frontier Province. The govern-
ment, on the advice of a Muslim member of the viceroy’s council,
offered local self-government and secretly encouraged the spread of
propaganda which smeared Congress as a Hindu body, so helping to
intensify Muslim separatism. The government believed, though no
adequate proof has ever been forthcoming, that Congress had incited
the tribes and paid them large sums of money. It seems highly unlikely
that such was the case, but the government was beginning to see Con-
gress, like the devil, under every stone and behind every disorder. The
government even went further; it declared the All-India Congress
Committee an unlawful association, and arrested Motilal Nehru, the
Congress president.

The arrests did not halt violence, which continued all over the coun-
try though, generally speaking, at such a level as to be fairly easily
controlled and suppressed. The boycott on foreign goods, which
assured Indian businessmen that nationalism was good for them and
their businesses, flourished while the import of piece goods and cigar-
ettes dropped to nearly a quarter of the previous year s figures. The
government could do very little about this though, in Bombay, it
confiscated Congress buildings and property. Larger bodies of police
were raised — the British could still rely on plenty of recruits despite
Congress propaganda — collective fmes were imposed upon villages,
and young offenders whipped.

In June 1930, the publication of the Simon report had been received
in India with enthusiastic indifference. In fact, its reception in Britain
was much the same; it is, after all, rather futile to be concerned over the
future of a stillborn child. The Labour government dissociated itself
from the report by announcing that Sir John Simon would not attend
the Round Table conference, and the prime minister did not bother to
consult even those Labour members of Parliament who had been on
the commission ! The problem now before the governments of Britain
and India was how to get Congress to attend the coming Round
Table conference.

56

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

5 Round Table and After

The first step had already been taken. The new government’s virtual
rejection of the Simon report seemed a good omen to Congress. Those
moderate nationalists who had staked their all on slow constitutional
development now tried to mediate between the Indian government
and Congress. Gandhi, visited in jail, stated his terms. He was prepared
to call off civil disobedience if in return the government would release
political prisoners convicted of crimes other than violence, restore
sequestrated property, refund fines, and not enforce the salt laws; on
constitutional issues he demanded a number of safeguards. The
Nehrus, in jail together, refused to countenance Gandhi’s terms without
first discussing them with him. To this the government consented. But,
under the influence of the Nehrus, Gandhi’s attitude stiffened; he said
the government must recognize India’s right to secede from the British
empire, and that a responsible Indian government must be formed. Of
course Irwin could not accept such terms, for he could not in any
circumstances commit the British parliament. It was up to Congress to
attend the Round Tabic conference and persuade the legislators.

It was Jawaharlal Nehru who was responsible for the hardening of
the Congress attitude. There seems little doubt that Gandhi himself
was prepared to compromise, but Nehru was obviously not anxious
for a settlement; he must have known that the revised demands were
asking the impossible. His attitude was partly due to the fact that he
had lost faith in the British Labour government which, despite its
fine phrases in opposition, seemed very little different from the Con-
servatives when it was actually in power. He was, too, unwilling to
accept the mediation of those moderate nationalists whom he despised
as lackeys of the British.

In November, the first Roimd Table conference met in London. The
Indian delegates, carefully chosen, represented every special interest
from the princes onwards — except the only effective nationalist organ,
Congress. Obviously, the conference could be of little value and in fact
it brought about nothing except a new stage in the relationship between
the princes and British India. But one thing the conference made clear,
that all the delegates (including the princes) wanted responsible govern-

THE STRUGGLE

57

ment in India. Congress, it seemed, was not alone; even those elements
whom the British thought to be ‘on our side’ echoed Congress
demands.

Irwin made an appeal to Gandhi, inviting him to co-operate in
placing ‘the seal of friendship once again upon the relations of the two
peoples, whom unhappy circumstances have latterly estranged’. The
sensation that resulted from this was caused not by its almost classic
understatement of the real state of relations, but by the fact that it was
made at all. Official opinion was shocked; the viceroy’s words seemed
almost treasonable. But the appeal was really only another expression
of governmental support for Gandhi in his role as neutralizer of
rebellion. It was precisely keyed to his emotional understanding — hate
put aside, earnestness displayed, a ‘change of heart’ for all to see. This
was exactly what Gandhi had foretold would take place, that the con-
science of the British would be awakened. The Labour prime minister,
Ramsay Macdonald, followed Irwin’s appeal by stating a new policy for
provincial autonomy, a federal legislature, and safeguards for minorities
during a transitional period only. This seemed adequate enough. Not
to the Nehrus; but the government was concentrating on Gandhi.

On 25 January 1931, Gandhi and the more important Congress
leaders were released from jail. To many British this was an outrageous
act, implying that sedition had become respectable. Congress, however,
accepted the release as a gesture of genuine goodwill. Gandhi explained
‘I am hungering for peace, if it can be had with honour’. ‘Honour’ is a
curious word, especially when used in conjunction with ‘peace’, but
to Gandhi it meant ‘respect’, and that was what seemed to be offered.
Also, Congress was wearying of civil disobedience. The government
did not seem to have been weakened by ten months of agitation,
authority still remained in its hands, and the disease of religious con-
flict among Indians had — instead of being stamped out — in fact become
more acute. Perhaps Gandhi was right after all.

Given power by the weakness of Congress but deprived of the
counsel of Motilal Nehru — who had died in February 1931 — Gandhi
stated his terms to the viceroy. He complained against ‘police excesses’
and demanded an inquiry; the viceroy, however, replied by appealing
to him to forget the past and think of the future. Gandhi was apparently
not prepared to do so but, when matters seemed to have reached a
deadlock from which neither side could break out, the moderate

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA
nationalists persuaded Irwin to invite Gandhi to come and talk to
him.

The meeting that took place was almost entirely concerned with the
past, and on all major current issues the viceroy was unyielding. Gandhi,
however, was not. I succumbed,* he said later, not to Lord Irwin but
to the honesty in him*; in doing so, Gandhi ignored the instructions
to be firm that had been given him by the Congress Working Com-
mittee. The Indian government nevertheless conceded the right of
peaceful picketing under certain conditions, and ordered provincial
governments to take the first step towards releasing political prisoners.
Gandhi agreed to stop the boycott of British goods and to halt civil
disobedience, which had almost come to a standstill anyway; when this
had been done, the government was to abandon punitive ordinances,
cease prosecutions, and make a number of other concessions.

On the surface, it seemed that the viceroy had won all the advantages,
particularly since Congress had agreed to attend the Round Table
conference in London. But Congress also gained — in prestige. The pact
appeared as one between equals and implied acceptance of the fact that
Congress spoke for at least a large proportion of the Indian people.
Most British opinion in India considered that the viceroy had been
foolish to parley with an already defeated enemy who was only playing
for time. They did not realize what a brilliant tactical advantage Irwin
had achieved in the results of the parley. Neither did the government
in London. The Conservative opposition — naturally enough, for its
instincts were imperialist — became restive at Baldwin’s support for
Irwin, a support which was in fact based more on personal esteem than
on approval of the viceroy’s policy. Discontent within the Conservative
party was so strong that attempts were made to dislodge Baldwin from
the party leadership, and Winston Churchill resigned from the shadow
cabinet in protest against Baldwin’s acceptance of the way in which
the viceroy had let down ‘the majesty of Britain*.

In India, opposition was growing against Gandhi, but it was not
particularly powerful. Nehru opposed the settlement, but he soon gave
in, and a number of really dynamic Congressmen, who might have
made things very uncomfortable for Gandhi, were not free to do so;
among these was Subhas Chandra Bose, whom the government kept
in jail throughout the negotiations. Many nationalists thought the
amnesty for prisoners was too narrow in scope and that those convicted

THE STRUGGLE 59

of murder should also be freed, or should at least have their death sen-
tences commuted. Gandhi did in fact discuss with Irwin the ease of one
Baghat Singh, but he was not able to win any concession. Although
moderation would have been publicly wise, Irwin could not risk rousing
British opinion in India any more than he had already done by his
settlement with Gandhi. It has also been suggested that Gandhi put
forward the request for clemency in a half-hearted way and this may
well have been true, for his hatred of violence was so acute that it
inhibited him from pressing the case of Baghat Singh with any great
enthusiasm. When the execution took place, Gandhi sensed the
emotional atmosphere, and condemned it as ‘a first-class blunder’. But
Congress was not much concerned with Baghat Singh, and he was
soon forgotten.

The government, in its desire to encourage Gandhi, withdrew its
special ordinances before the civil disobedience campaign had actually
been called off, and there followed a period of considerable confusion.
Ambiguous statements filled the air and each side interpreted them in
its own particular way. The fact that the so-called Delhi Pact had been
made in a cloud of emotion did not contribute to verbal precision. But
one thing at least was clear. Gandhi had established a firm basis for
Congress co-operation with the British and, despite the events that
succeeded the agreement, the British government also was more firmly
committed to co-operate with Gandhi. Irwin had achieved a stay of
execution — for the British — while Gandhi had succeeded once and for
all in diverting Congress from any truly revolutionary path.

Congress met, in a ‘festival atmosphere’, at Karachi and it was
decided that Gandhi should attend the next session of the Round Table
conference. But changes, none for the better, were taking place in the
political climate. Irwin had been replaced in April 1931 by Lord
Willingdon, who has often been contrasted unfavourably with him
but who differed from him only in technique; in war, though a general
may change his tactics to suit changing situations, the strategic rules
which guide him remain the same. In August, the Labour adminis-
tration at Westminster had given way to a so-called ‘National’ govern-
ment, which was really Conservative. Ramsay Macdonald remained
prime minister, but he was no longer anything more than a compliant
prisoner of the Conservatives.

Gandhi, who went off to London with, as he put it, only God as his

<5o THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

guide, found the conference preoccupied with the problem of minori-
ties, and, in particular, that of the largest— the Muslims. When Ramsay
Macdonald addressed the delegates as ‘My Hindu and Muslim friends’, /
Gandhi interrupted with ‘There are only Indians here*. Though the /
prime minister retaliated by changing his form of address to ‘My
Hindu friends . . . and others’, Gandhi had stated his position and he
clung dogmatically to the thesis that Hindu and Muslim were one and
that Congress — whom he represented at the conference — was the only
body which could speak for all India. He would therefore offer no
constructive suggestions for reconciling differences with those who
spoke for other interests. His mystical attitude was not well received,
especially as he appeared to have little or no awareness of the problems
involved; he seemed to think that, by ignoring them, he proved they
did not exist. The only precise statement he made was that if India
received self-government she would not necessarily leave the British
Commonwealth. Those at the conference who represented minority
groups, especially the Muslims, demanded that separate electorates be
retained. Gandhi, whose indifference to reality had by now antagon-
ized everybody, was firmly against it. The British government, seeing
no possibility of sensible discussion on this point, announced that it
would itself make a decision on the problem of minorities. Gandhi s
reply was to leave for India.

While Gandhi was in London, unrest and terrorism had continued in
India. When he returned to Bombay he found that a number of
Congress leaders, including Nehru, had been arrested. ‘Christmas gifts
from Lord Willingdon, our Christian viceroy,’ remarked Gandhi
bitterly. He tried to see the viceroy, but refused to accept Willingdon’s
conditions.

Congress now determined to revive the civil disobedience campaign
and, in reply, the government arrested Gandhi, Patel, and, over the
next few months, some eighty thousand others. Congress itself was
declared illegal and so were many other organizations associated with
it. The velvet glove was off again.

The viceroy had displayed to the world that the British were still in
control. The British in India — and the ‘National’ government in
London — were pleased. They believed that Gandhi was no longer
needed to help run the country. Furthermore, the Congress party s
sense of purpose had been considerably eroded by Gandhi’s ‘accom-

THE STRUGGLE

6l

modation’ with Irwin, and the new civil disobedience campaign was a
failure. Acts of terrorism and communal violence still took place, but
the mass of the people had had enough of living at the centre of a
whirlpool. By the middle of 1932, a sullen peace had descended upon
India.

Gandhi now threatened a fast to the death if the British government
went ahead with its declared plan to keep separate electorates for min-
orities. The government was unimpressed and, in September 1932,
Gandhi began his fast. Nehru and other Congress leaders felt this to be
too big a gesture over too small an issue — what was the point of dying
for anything less than freedom? But their opinions made no difference.
Gandhi continued his fast, gave it up, then began another.

In Britain, the secretary of state for India remarked smugly ‘The
interest of many Congress leaders has now been diverted from self-
government to Mr Gandhi’s campaign against Untouchability’. The
Untouchables, the lowest classes of Hindu society, were denied entry
to temples, the use of the same wells as caste Hindus, and were gener-
ally discriminated against both socially and religiously by the rest of
Hindu society. The Simon commission had estimated that they made
up some 30 per cent of the population, and it was now the British
government’s intention to protect their interests, like those of the
Muslims, by reserving seats in the legislative assemblies exclusively for
representatives of the Untouchables. Gandhi, the religious reformer,
was particularly concerned with altering their status (or lack of it) in
Hindu society, and his overriding preoccupation with reform shows
most obviously in the fact that he was willing to abandon action against
the British in favour of a campaign against Untouchability. Gandhi
came to an agreement with the Untouchable leader, Dr Ambedkar,
that the offer of separate electorates for Untouchables would be
rejected.

In May 1933, shortly after his release from prison because of ill
health, Gandhi officially called off the civil disobedience campaign,
which had in any case ground almost to a standstill. There was much
criticism of his action, or rather of his lack of action. Subhas Chandra
Bose, away in Europe for medical treatment after being released from
jail, condemned Gandhi as ‘an old, useless piece of furniture’, and
issued, in conjunction with the veteran Congress leader, Vithalbliai
Eatcl (also in Europe at the time), a statement which described the

62 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

ending of the civil disobedience campaign as ‘a confession of failure*
and called for a new leader to replace Gandhi. Nehru — still in jail —
was tom between irritation at the superb irrelevance of Gandhi’s
actions, and his own weakness in face of the Mahatma’s ‘irresistible
charm and subtle power over people*.

There was no doubt that the majority of the Westernized intellec-
tuals in Congress resented Gandhi’s reactionary views, but there was
very little they could do about him even if they wanted to. The very
fact that they were intellectuals, with European-style left-wing
opinions, was against them. The majority of Congress members did
not even understand what these men were talking about, and those who
did were usually businessmen who automatically reacted against the
very mention of the word ‘socialism*. The left wing too was convinced
that the support of the masses was the key to political change. That
support they could not hope to win by themselves; even today,
Nehru’s dominating position in the eyes of the Indian masses is not a
product of his socialist ideas but of the fact that he is the chosen heir of
Gandhi. The equation was inescapable — Congress needed mass support
to justify its claim that it spoke for India, Gandhi had mass support,
therefore Gandhi must equal Congress. A socialist party was formed in
1934 but it called itself the Congress Socialist party and remained
within the movement, proliferating manifestoes but totally unable —
and basically unwilling — to challenge Gandhi and the right wing for
the leadership of Congress.

Other and subsequendy victorious opposition to Gandhi was, how-
ever, in the making. Between 1933 and the 1936-7 elections, which
began a new stage of constitutional reform, the Muslim League was
transformed from an organization designed to protect a religious
minority into one pledged to the creation of a separate Muslim state.
The Muslims believed that the British were now determined in the
not-too-distant future to grant representative government to India,
and their fears of Hindu majority rule once again revived. In 1934 the
League was reorganized by a new leader, Muhammad Ah Jinnah,
whose main concern was to create for himself in the Muslim League
the commanding position he had failed to achieve as an erstwhile
member of Congress. At this time, Jinnah saw himself as a sort of
Indian Ataturk, but he was rather vague about what was to be done.
He first put forward the ‘two nation’ theory, that Muslims were not

THE STRUGGLE

63

just of a different religion from Hindus, but that they had a separate
personality and were, in fact ‘a nation’. It is very unlikely that Jinnah
at this time actually envisaged the possibility of any partition of India,
but he gave the Muslim League a ‘modem’ ideology, however vague,
and a positive political platform in place of negative religious fears.

Congress leaders of all shades looked upon Jinnah as a monster. To
Gandhi he was a challenge but not an important one as yet, for Gandhi
quite rightly believed that Jinnah did not speak for the Muslim masses.
To Nehru, and others who felt like him, Jinnah was a reactionary
anti-democrat, a demagogue using religion for his own purposes.
Congress propaganda even suggested that Jinnah was a creature of the
subtle British. But Jinnah was not in the pay of anybody. He was only
taking a mortgage upon his own destiny. This cold, highly-Westem-
ized lawyer passionately wanted recognition for the greamess he
thought was in him. At one time he had believed that he could make
his mark in Britain; he had even hoped to become a Privy Councillor,
but the British failed to see the superman behind the elegant fa£ade.
Jinnah was not really interested in the Muslims of India and their
problems. He was determined to prove that he could not be ignored.
And he was to succeed in becoming ‘the key to Indian freedom’.

In the mid-i93o’s, however, Congress was not particularly interested
in Jinnah. It merely took an insulting and negative attitude towards
him and the Muslim League — an attitude which did much to consoli-
date Jinnah’s position.

6 A New Charter of Bondage

While the affairs of the nationalists remained in some confusion, the
mountain of British parliamentary method continued to gestate and,
to the surprise of everyone and the regret of many, the mouse it brought
forth was larger than anyone had expected. The proposals became law
as the Government of India Act of 1935.

The 1935 Act incorporated all the stages of constitutional develop-
ment up to that date, and added two new principles: that a federal
structure should be organized and that popular responsible govern-
ment should be set up in the provinces. Under the terms of the Act,
new provinces were to be formed and Burma was to be separated from

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

64

India and given a new constitution following the lines laid down in the
Act of 1919. In India, dyarchy — with its ‘reserved’ subjects — was to be
maintained at the Centre, and the overall authority of the British par-
liament was to be undiluted. Dyarchy was, however, abandoned in the
provinces and an almost completely responsible parliamentary govern-
ment, based upon a considerably wider franchise, was established. The
federal provisions of the Act had been designed to incorporate the
princely states into the new system of government; but the princes
would not co-operate, and nationalists viewed the federal proposals
as an attempt to perpetuate British rule by playing on the nationwide
divisions between special-interest groups. The part of the Act which
incorporated the federal provisions never, in fact, came into force.

Indian reaction to the new reforms was basically unfavourable.
Even moderate leaders saw them as undesirable and nationalists were
quick to describe the Act as a ‘slave constitution’ and ‘a new charter of
bondage’. The British, on the other hand, saw it as the last stage before
dominion status. The Muslims, of course, were sure it contained the
threat of Hindu majority rule. But in spite of their fears, the Muslim
League decided that ‘the provincial scheme of the constitution should
be utilized for what it is worth’. The League thus made it clear that it
did not intend to be deprived of the chance of winning some sort of
power in areas where there was a Muslim majority.

Congress denunciation of the Act was not unanimous. Nehru, who
was elected president in 1936, said: ‘It would be a fatal error for the
Congress to accept office. That inevitably would involve co-operation
with British imperialism.’ But a large body of opinion in Congress
believed that refusal to accept office would merely be playing the game
according to British rules.

Gandhi, at this eventful time, was not even a member of Congress.
He had ‘deserted politics’ in September 1934, ostensibly because, as he
wrote in his letter of resignation, the more intellectual Congressmen
‘were hampered’ by an ‘unexampled loyalty’ to him which prevented
them from opposing him. Nevertheless, as Nehru put it, Gandhi
‘could not rid himself even if he wanted to of his dominating position’ ;
indeed, Gandhi had left Congress partly to demonstrate just that. But
he also wanted to prove to left wing elements that they could not con-
trol the Congress machine nor win the loyalty of the masses. During
the arguments over the 1935 Acts, Gandhi was off marching through

THE STRUGGLE 65

the countryside, active in schemes of village welfare. His spirit, how-
ever, remained behind to influence decisions.

Although Nehru believed that Congressmen should not accept
office, he did not mean that they should boycott the elections under
the new Act. It was decided to postpone any public statement about
accepting office until after the elections had taken place. When they
did take place, the results gave Congress absolute majorities in five of
the provinces. In general, the electorate voted not for individual candi-
dates but for a party; most votes for Congress candidates were a vote
for Gandhi, and most Congress victories were in Hindu-majoriry
constituencies. One thing the elections did prove — Congress did not
speak for all Indians, and certainly not for most Muslims.

The size of the Congress vote, however, surprised everybody includ-
ing Congress. Somewhat overwhelmed by this display of popular
approval, the party overruled Nehru. It would take office. Nehru, with
his familiar casuistry, argued that this did not imply a change of policy.
‘The opinion of the majority of the Congress today,’ he said in July
x937> *is in favour of acceptance of office, but it is even more strongly
and unanimously in favour of the basic Congress policy of fighting the
new constitution and ending it. . . . We arc not going to be partners
and co-operators in the imperial firm. . . . We go to the assemblies or
accept office ... to try to prevent the federation from materializing,
to stultify the constitution and prepare the ground for the constituent
assembly and independence ... to strengthen the masses, and, wherever
possible, in the narrow sphere of the constitution, to give some relief
to them/

But Congress would take up the office to which it had been elected
only under certain conditions. The governors of the provinces, who in
special circumstances had the right to veto legislation, must guarantee
not to do so. It seemed that, by making this condition, Congress was
trying to break the constitution even before taking office. A com-
promise was reached, however, one in which Gandhi (now returned
from the countryside) again discerned the honesty of motive which
he had first seen in Lord Irwin. What actually happened was that
Congress had observed that, during the three months in which the Act
had already been in force without Congress co-operation, those minis-
tries which had taken interim office exercised a large measure of real
power. The majority of Congress members wanted the perquisites of

66 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

that power and did not intend to be baulked of them by left wing
intransigence. Once in power, Congress soon began so show signs of
enjoying it and forgot the main issue of national independence by
becoming, in Nehru’s words, ‘involved in petty reformist activities’.

Congress was not a political party in any Western sense, nor, when
it accepted office, did it operate in Western democratic terms. It had
declared its aim as, not to work the constitution, but to destroy it and
thus bring independence nearer. But Congress had been elected on a
platform which contained the promise of specific social and economic
reforms and, when its ministries took office, they found themselves
under pressure from their constituents to get on with the job of trans-
lating the promises into reality. This brought a dilemma. To institute
radical changes could only lead to the alienation of some special-
interest group essential to Congress unity. Agricultural reform would
have meant antagonizing landlords, industrial legislation would have
threatened Indian big business. On the other hand, failure to initiate
reform would imperil the masses’ support of Congress. Furthermore,
it would be a denial of Congress’s avowed reasons for claiming that
Indians could rule themselves better than the British. The strains inside
Congress soon became severe and there is no knowing what might have
happened if the outbreak of the Second World War had not given
Congress ministries an excellent excuse to resign. Otherwise, mass
disillusionment would inevitably have grown and Congress itself
might well have split.

Meanwhile, for a limited period. Congress leaders were in a position
to control their members. They used coercion where possible and
expulsion when necessary. The organization which had been built up
by Vallabhbhai Patel facilitated dictatorship by the Congress Parlia-
mentary Board. In fact, the board was so powerful that it functioned
as a sort of central government. The authoritarian control exercised by
the board further convinced the Muslim League that, should a federal
India ever emerge, the central government was sure to be Congress
dominated and would try to continue to coerce the provinces.

Many Congressmen resented being bullied from above and tried to
force the Congress leadership into following a programme of radical
reform. One in particular, Subhas Bose, saw behind this authoritarian
rule the deadening hand of Gandhi, the Congress dictator. Bose had
been out of India at just the time when he might have been able to

THE STRUGGLE

67

form a new and dynamic party, and after his return from Europe he
had been put in jail again. By the time he was released, Gandhi was
back at the head of Congress, although he was still not officially a
member. Bose, through his writings and speeches, had now become a
national figure — at least-among the younger, left-wing members of
Congress — and Gandhi decided that the best way to neutralize this new
opposition, while at the same time convincing the more progressive
members of Congress that their place was still within the movement,
was to make Bose president of Congress.

In 1938, Bose took office. Gandhi, it seems, believed he could convert
the fiery revolutionary to his own non-violent views. He was wrong.
In J939. Bose stood once again for president against Gandhi’s wishes
and, after a bitter contest, defeated the candidate whom Gandhi had
favoured. Gandhi now turned the technique of non-cooperation, not
against the British, but against Congress’s own president. Bose was
forced to resign.

Many Congressmen including Nehru were soon condemning Bose
as a fascist, but Bose replied that if fascists meant Hitlers, super-Hitlers,
or budding Hitlers, ‘then one may say that these specimens of humanity
are to be found in the Rightist camp’. He now attempted to found a
new left wing organization, the Forward Bloc. This failed. It was,
however, by no means the last that India was to hear of Subhas Bose.

Gandhi, whom so many both in India and abroad believed to be
compounded only of sweetness and light, had, by the use of his over-
whelming prestige and the sort of intrigue one would expect from
Tammany Hall, succeeded in disposing of the only real opposition to
his leadership.

7 The Mad World of War

In April 1939, Bose was gone but the likelihood of war in Europe had
taken his place as a threat to Congress. Bose himself welcomed the
possibility of conflict because a blow to Britain in Europe would
undoubtedly weaken her grasp on India. Other Congress leaders had
no such clear-cut vision of the future. Gandhi and Nehru apparently
had no desire to take advantage of Britain’s troubles. Gandhi’s sym-
pathies— ‘from a purely humanitarian standpoint’, he said — were with

(58 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

Britain and France. Nehru, with his touching faith in democracy as
not practised by the British in India, was an opponent of fascism.

On 3 September 1939, the viceroy — as was undoubtedly his right —
declared India at war with Germany and promulgated a number of
ordinances granting himself special wartime powers. The viceroy’s
action did no more than underline the fact that in spite of the 1935 Act,
effective power still lay with the British, and that Indians themselves
even in matters concerning their life and death — did not count very
much and had no right to be consulted. Congress demanded that
Britain should immediately state her war aims and their meaning for
India; if the reply was satisfactory, then Congress would co-operate.
Nehru had declared that Congress was ‘not out to bargain’, but it had
obviously stated a price for its support.

Gandhi, characteristically, appealed for unconditional support for
Britain. The whole of his political philosophy was conceived, not in
terms of defeating the conquerors of India, but of converting them;
without the British, everything that Gandhi stood for was bereft of
meaning. If Britain were to be defeated, India might well find herself
under another conqueror, one who would have little patience with the
Gandhian approach to politics. Gandhi, however, made it clear that the
sort of support he had in mind was not practical but moral. Congress
followed up Gandhi’s statement with a demand for the immediate
declaration of Indian independence !

Other parties were also attempting to bargain with the British. The
Muslim League courteously informed the government that, though it
condemned Nazi aggression, it required an assurance that no decision
should be made about India without the approval of the League. ‘The
Muslim League,’ it stated categorically, was ‘the only organization that
can speak for Muslim India.’

All Britain was prepared to offer anybody was a promise that, at the
end of the war, she would ‘be prepared to regard die scheme of the
Act [of 1935] as open to modification in the light of Indian views’. The
government in India, however, was prepared to make what it obviously
considered a major concession; it would establish some sort of consul-
tative body which would include the viceroy and representatives of
various Indian political groups. Though this offer was not unreasonable
in the light of the realities of the time, it was obviously too vague to
be acceptable to Congress. By 15 November 1939, all the Congress

THE STRUGGLE

69

provincial ministries had resigned. Jinnah described this as ‘a day of
deliverance and thanksgiving’, and the Muslim League ministries
remained in office.

Despite the Congress action, attempts at compromise continued. In
March 1940, Gandhi stated ‘Compromise is in my very being. . . . The
basis of my fight is love for the opponent’ ; but love or no love, the
chance of compromise was non-existent. Britain once again repeated
that dominion status was the goal for India — after the war. Congress
found this unsatisfactory; it wanted independence and the right that
Indians themselves — not the British parliament — should decide what
sort of government they would have. The main obstacle to com-
promise was the peculiar love-hate relationship between Congress
leaders and the British, a relationship rather like that of a long-married
couple who say they want a divorce, yet who are so used to each other’s
ways that they are reluctant to part. But there was another, stranger,
obstacle. Over the years of struggle, a fear of freedom had grown up
in Congress. Its inability actually to win that freedom had reinforced
the inertia of naturally peaceful men. The Congress leaders had virtu-
ally grown old in failure. Now that the world outside had broken
into the closed room of Indian nationalism, they were frightened of
what it might do to them.

Gandhi wanted Britain to win the war so that the British could leave
India as a clear consequence of his campaign to convert them. Above
all, he needed the reassurance of their conversion to prove that he had
been right all along. If a new and ruthless tyranny were imposed upon
India — which would happen if Germany won the war — it would mean
that non-violence would have to give place to genuine revolutionary
methods. Jawaharlal Nehru, too, hoped that Britain would win. He
was not prepared to help her do so, but, though revolutionary in speech,
he was no more a revolutionary in fact than the bourgeois leaders of
the British Labour party.

During the Congress session held at Ramghar in March 1940, the
old demands were repeated although the situation had changed.
Congress now met under the shadow of the blitzkrieg in Europe; it
seemed that Britain would soon be overrun by Germany and that
British rule in India might collapse as a result. I11 their fear that India
might have to face an enemy invasion, Congress leaders turned against
Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, and a new resolution was finally

y0 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

passed in July 1940, pledging Congress support for the war effort. Only,
however, in return for a national government. This resolution marked
the end of an era. Mr Rajagopalachari, who was later to become the
first Indian governor-general, phrased the epitaph bluntly. The Indian
National Congress,’ he said, ‘is a political organization pledged to win
the political independence of the country. It is not an institution for
organizing world peace.’ Yet again, Gandhi withdrew from Congress.

Meanwhile, the Muslim League had not been inactive. Jinnah had
rejected an approach by the then Congress president, a Muslim named
Maulana Azad, with these crude words: ‘Cannot you realize [that, as
president of Congress] you are made a Muslim show-boy, to give it
colour that it is national and deceive foreign countries? The Congress,
is a Hindu body.’ Jinnah had already made it clear that he now en-
visaged a separate Muslim state. ‘Muslims, he proclaimed in March
1940, ‘are a nation according to any definition of a nation, and they
must have their homelands, their territory, and their State.’

In August 1940, the British made another offer which differed on a
number of points from those which had gone before. Now the govern-
ment was prepared to invite a number of representative Indians to
join the viceroy’s executive council; to set up a War Advisory Board;
to continue to give full weight to the views of minorities; and, after
the war, to set up a representative body to decide on a new constitu-
tion. In substance, it offered the same as had been offered by Lord
Irwin eleven years before !

Minority parties, including the Muslim League, welcomed the
‘August Offer’ though all made conditions for their acceptance. Con-
gress, however, did not welcome it, for the government had merely
repeated that the final goal was dominion status, and this was not
acceptable to Congress. Nevertheless, a curious ‘sporting offer was
made by Rajagopalachari on 27 August; he undertook ‘to persuade
my colleagues to agree to the Muslim League being invited to nominate
the prime minister’, and to form an administration if the British would
agree to establish a provisional national government forthwith.
Whether this was meant seriously is open to question, but Rajagopala-
chari may have deluded himself into thinking that he actually could
‘persuade’ his colleagues. Even with this intervention, there was no
likelihood of the British accepting any Congress ultimatum.

It had only been a few weeks before Congress turned once again to

THE STRUGGLE

71

Gandhi and invited him to re-assume the leadership. Congress thought
negotiations were about to take place and that they would need him;
they were wrong. The British were not prepared to establish a national
government in India, and in this they were not unreasonable, for they
were responsible for India’s defence and could hardly be expected to
regard the techniques of non-violence as having any practical value in
the face of aggression. Gandhi now called for civil disobedience,
although not on a large scale. The government had declared it an
offence to make speeches against the war, so Gandhi decided that some-
one must make an anti-war speech. On 7 October, one Congressman
did so, was arrested, and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.
The government did not leave it at that. They also arrested Nehru. He,
however, was sentenced to four years. By the end of November 1940,
some five hundred more who had offered civil disobedience joined
him in detention.

The arrests caused very little stir, partly because the government of
India had forbidden newspapers to report the civil disobedience cam-
paign. Congress nevertheless pursued its policy, and by the end of
January 1941 another 2,250 were in jail. By August, the number had
risen to 20,000, although only about 13,000 were actually behind bars.
This figure was very small compared with the total membership of
Congress, and many Congressmen were coming to believe that the
campaign was not a success. Gandhi, however, would have none of
this. His ‘moral protest’ was a ‘token of the yearning of a political
organization to achieve the freedom of 350,000,000 people’. Many
Congress leaders wanted to call off the campaign but Gandhi insisted
that it should continue.

Outside Congress, the minority parties continued to issue statements.
The Muslim League, though Jinnah’s leadership was not altogether
unchallenged, expanded its ideas about Pakistan. League members
expressed opinions highly critical of the British. No action was taken
against them. League governments continued in three of the provinces,
ostensibly fully committed to the war effort but, in fact, not being
particularly co-operative. Moderate Indians tried to bring about some
sort of unity but they held the confidence of no one, not even the
British. There was unrcsolvable deadlock. The British refused to con-
sider granting any form of popular government until the various
forces in Indian political life became reconciled. Of this, there was

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

72

really no possibility since neither Congress nor the Muslim League
genuinely desired control at the Centre. And the British were well
aware of it.

The government in London continued to reiterate its promise of full
dominion status for India after the end of the war, but such status — it
was implied — could only be granted to a united India. There is no
doubt that the British government, which was now made up of repre-
sentatives of all British political parties under the premiership of
Winston Churchill, still reflected the continuing Conservative attitude
to India — pragmatic enough to realize that a transfer of power from
Britain to India must one day take place, but nevertheless conditioned
by a sense of Britain’s historic mission. Britain had created India out of a
collection of warring states; it did not intend to destroy that creation
by dividing India when the time came to leave. This belief — emotional
perhaps, but genuinely held — was shared by the Labour party, but
neither party really understood the nature of the nationalist yearning
for freedom. Not necessarily freedom at any price, but certainly not
freedom at a price dictated by Britain. Indian nationalists were con-
cerned with their own struggle for status and could hardly be expected
to care whether or not Britain’s historic mission was justified. They
regarded this — to them, morbid — insistence on ‘unity’ as a deliberate
attempt by Britain to perpetuate British rule by emphasizing the
divisions within India. L. S. Amcry, the then secretary of state, gave
Indian nationalists a watchword for unity — ‘India First’ — which pro-
voked Gandhi into one of the few realistic statements he ever made.
‘Let them [the British] withdraw from India and I promise that the
Congress and the [Muslim] League will fmd it to their interest to come
together and devise a homemade solution for the government of
India. It may not be scientific; it may not be after any Western pat-
tern, but it will be durable.’ He then went on to make a surprising
comment. ‘It may be that, before wc come to that happy state of affairs,
we tuny have to fight amongst ourselves. But if we agree not to invite die
assistance of any outside Power, the trouble will perhaps last a fort-
night.’

The significance of Gandhi’s suggestion lay not in the possibility of a
fight, for by that he probably meant only argument, but in die impli-
cation that there might be other forms of government for India than
Western-style democracy. Not, however, that it mattered very much

THE STRUGGLE

73

what was said by either party. All the arguing was no more than a
shadow-play. Indian nationalists did not trust the British government,
who, in turn, did not really understand what motivated the nationalists ;
the administrators and rulers in India were not much concerned with
either, and simply got on with the job of ruling.

But there were some who saw that, by encouraging Muslim intran-
sigence, they might delay the granting of even dominion status.
Jinnah began to receive, and accept, advice from very high levels in
the administration. Some believed that the Muslim League’s demand
for Pakistan could be used to influence both the British Conservative
and Labour parties; neither of them wanted to see a divided India, and
so long as deadlock was maintained, neither would be likely to transfer
power to India. Those, however, who thought that by encouraging
the desire for division they could perpetuate Britain’s presence in
India, were as on most other occasions out of touch with the times.
The Indian nationalists shared with the Indian Civil Service a narrow,
parochial view, believing that the only factors involved in the imperial
equation were Britain and India. They could not have been more
blind.

Congress was further convinced of the untrustworthy nature of
Britain’s intentions by the slowness with which the terms of the so-
called August Offer of 1940 were put into practice. It was not until
July 1941 that the composition of the new viceroy’s council was
announced. There were to be eight Indians out of thirteen members,
but though all were men of standing and experience they did not repre-
sent in any way the main streams of Indian nationalism. Consequently,
from a nationalist point of view, they could be no more than puppets
of the British.

A few weeks later, something occurred which seemed to confirm
that Congress fears were not without foundation. The doctrine of
self-determination expressed by President Wilson during the First
World War had not applied to colonial peoples, and it now appeared
that the ‘Atlantic Charter’ of the current war was also to be denied
them. Indians had welcomed the statement in the charter which claimed
that the British and American governments respected ‘the right of all
Peoples to choose the government under which they live; and they wish
to sec sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have
been forcibly deprived of them’. But Prime Minister Churchill

74 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

hastened to make it quite clear that this clause referred only to Euro-
pean nations and that India was ‘quite a separate problem*. He was
undoubtedly right, but once again a declaration of war aims appeared
to have overtones of racial discrimination. Nothing, it seemed, had
changed between the two wars.

The secretary of state repeated the promise that India would be able
to choose its own form of government after the war, but he could
hardly expect Indians to believe him. Even the promise itself now
sounded ambiguous to Indian ears, although no one had really ques-
tioned it before. It had stated that Indians were to be ‘primarily
responsible’ for making their own constitution; but did that mean the
same — as Amery insisted — as those words in the charter, ‘the right of all
peoples to choose the government under which they live’ ? Who was
secondarily responsible? If there was someone, and the phrase implied
that there was, then the ‘right* was diminished. Even moderate leaders
began to have doubts, not about British sincerity but about what
exactly the sincerity referred to. Almost everybody now had some
reservations about Britain’s trustworthiness.

On 4 December 1941, the government of India unexpectedly
released its Congress prisoners, including Azad and Nehru. Three days
later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour.

★ ★ ★

It would be quite wrong to assume that everyone in India was con-
cerned in the problems of politics. The Indian peasant remained virtu-
ally untouched by controversy and argument; for him, life was too
near the edge of death, and his main concern was with the struggle to
stay alive. Many educated Indians still served loyally in the legislatures
and in the Civil Service. Recruits for the Indian Army — the majority
of them Muslims — flowed in, and elements of that army were fighting
in Africa and the Middle East. Indian factories turned out war materials
and other goods in ever-increasing quantities. Indian workers took their
increased wage packets thankfully and remained quiet.

But while India behaved normally and the political parties wrangled,
one Indian leader set off in search of what he believed to be the only
way of forcing the British to leave India; Subhas Bose, who had been
arrested again in July 1940, had come to the conclusion that the Axis
powers were more likely to win the war. But were they to be trusted

THE STRUGGLE

75

to give disinterested help to Indian nationalism? Bose thought that
Russia would probably be more altruistic. He determined to leave
India and find out. But first he had to get out of prison. Knowing that
the British would be most unlikely to let him die in jail, he announced
that he proposed to starve himself to death, and having resisted forcible
feeding, he was finally released to await his trial at home. When
the day arrived, Bose could not be found. He was on his way to
Moscow.

But Bose got no further than Kabul. There his attempts to contact
the Russians were unsuccessful and he finally turned to the Italians, who
promised him a passport. After a difficult journey, he arrived in Berlin
in March 1941. Soon, a new voice was to be heard over the radio, a
voice that called Indians to rise and help those who were willing to help
them. Until Japan entered the war, however, Bose could do little
except broadcast and try to form an Indian legion from among prison-
ers of war in Germany. As 1942 dawned, Bose’s call to Indians was
reinforced by the Japanese sweep towards the gates of India. Tokyo
radio, and transmitters in Siam and Singapore, announced that the
armies of Nippon were coming to free India from British tyraimy.
Singapore and Rangoon had fallen to the Japanese, the British Navy’s
largest ships had been sunk. It seemed that deliverance was imminent.

Deliverance was not particularly welcome, however, especially to
Indian nationalists. One of the justifications of British rule, and the one
which no one questioned, was that it had protected India from outside
invasion; now it seemed that India was to suffer simply for being part
of the British empire. The British tried to rally Indians to defend their
country. But many asked, why should Indians respond to the call if
Japan was in fact winning? If Japan was winning, it would be madness
to antagonize her.

Again, however, the majority of Congress leaders rejected Gandhi’s
policy and called for some sort of co-operation with the British. But
though Gandhi’s pacifism now no longer seemed acceptable to them,
he succeeded in destroying any possibility of co-operation with the
British by nominating the uncompromising Pandit Nehru as his
successor. Congress remained divided.

The threat of a Japanese invasion had brought no sign of comprom-
ise between Congress and the Muslim League. The League’s official
organ, Dawn , proclaimed ‘Pakistan is our deliverance, defence, destiny.

7 6 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

. . . No amount of threats [from Congress, not the Japanese !] or in-
timidation will ever deter us from the chosen path. . . . Pakistan is our
only demand . . . and, by God, we will have it !’ With the character-
istic short-sightedness of all Indian nationalists, the League was appar-
ently more concerned with fighting Congress than with resisting the
Japanese.

During this period of unease. Congress was overhauling its organiza-
tion and preparing for every eventuality by setting up a parallel
government of its own, ready to take over when the British collapsed.
The extreme reactionary organization, the Hindu Mahasabha, its
temper rising against the Muslims, defied them to come out and fight.
It also demanded full independence from the British, but promised in
the meantime to co-operate with them in the defence of India. The
political groups of India screeched at one another while the Japanese
marched on. India, in Nehru’s words, was caught up in the ‘mad world
of war and politics and fascism and imperialism’.

8 A Post-dated Cheque

One Congress leader, Rajagopalachari, publicly called for ‘whole-
hearted resistance’ to the Japanese and the ‘transfer of full responsibility
to ‘a council of national leaders’. Furthermore, he warned the people
of his own province, Madras, they must be prepared to die in defence
of their country. Rajagopalachari also made an approach to the Muslim
League, but Congress did not approve his sense of realism.

The views of the principal nationalist leaders at this time were as
confused as they had ever been. Gandhi at least was consistent; he
meant to meet the Japanese with the same loving non-violence that he
thought was working against the British. His ndiveti was sublime —
and characteristic. Nehru, who found fascism emotionally frightening,
was aware of the utter irrelevance of Gandhi’s approach; but for
pacifism Nehru sought to substitute non-cooperation with the British
— and this was only replacing one nalvetl with another. Jinnah was so
preoccupied with his own ambitions that he was indifferent to every-
thing outside them. Bose, the only one with a clear-cut view of the
world, was far away in Europe nurturing his plans to liberate India
from outside.

THE STRUGGLE

77

Into this anarchy of purposes, the British once more inserted an
offer. On n March 1942, four days after Rangoon fell to the Japanese,
Winston Churchill announced that Sir Stafford Cripps, a socialist
member of the British war cabinet, would go to India ‘to satisfy him-
self upon the spot, by personal consultation, that the conclusions upon
which we are all agreed and which we believe represent a just and final
solution, will achieve their purpose’. The real desire of the British
government was, in Churchill’s words, ‘to rally all the forces of Indian
life to guard their land from the menace of the invader’. This repre-
sented little more than a hope that the government would receive
moral support; all that the British required was a truce from con-
troversy. This turned out to be more than Indian nationalism was
prepared to give.

The reason for the attempt being made at all can be seen in the com-
position of the British war cabinet itself. The government of India,
now rather rattled by the threat of invasion, wanted to arrest all the
principal Congress leaders and was confident that it could do so with-
out sparking off serious trouble. This idea was duly suggested to
London. Some members of the cabinet there, however, were not con-
vinced that the government of India was as efficient as it pretended to
be, and Labour ministers were also pressing for a last effort to reach a
compromise with Congress. War or no war, the British Labour party
did not relish being involved in the suppression of Congress, without
at least some attempt at reconciliation. Furthermore, they believed that
Congress would accept a reasonable offer. In the interests of cabinet
solidarity, it was agreed that the attempt be made. Furthermore, there
was considerable pressure from the United States, always emotionally
opposed to British imperialism even if she was an ally of Britain.
Churchill felt it necessary to make a gesture, and Cripps was sent to
India.

The ‘Draft Declaration’ that Cripps took with him repeated the
terms of the August Offer of 1940, but it went much further on a
number of points. It conceded India’s right to leave the British Com-
monwealth if she wished. This implied that ‘dominion status’ now
meant the same as ‘independence’. Also conceded was the unambigu-
ously-stated right of India to decide upon a new constitution. The
framing of it was to be solely, not ‘primarily’, in Indian hands. When
the constitution had been decided, India was to negotiate a treaty with

■78 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

Britain in order to guarantee ‘British obligations*. These obligations
were now considerably diminished in number; fair treatment for
business interests was not to be made a condition of the transfer of
power, nor were British residents in India to be classed as a racial or
religious minority*. As for British financial claims against India — times
had changed and it was now Britain who owed India money (because
of war purchases) rather than the other way round. The offer was also
made that there should be an interim system of government, and the
declaration invited the ‘leaders of the principal sections of the Indian
people’ to join. Cripps, at a press conference, made it quite clear that
the British proposals meant ‘complete and absolute self-determination
and self-government for India*.

The choice of Cripps as negotiator was astute. He was an upper-
class socialist and the British Labour party had always forcibly put
forward India’s case for freedom — except for the two occasions when it
had been in office. But Ramsay Macdonald was now conveniently
forgotten and Cripps, a somewhat puritan figure, had an obvious
sincerity which immediately appealed to Indians. On the other hand,
however, everything he said was always conditioned by one over-
riding factor. The main bulk of the British pledge could not be
redeemed until after the end of the war. Also, Cripps was to some
extent tainted by association, for he was a member of a cabinet whose
head was the reactionary Conservative and arch-enemy of India’s
freedom, Winston Churchill.

Cripps talked to representatives from virtually every facet of Indian
political life, but there was one party which could not be amenable to
discussion — the Japanese army. While Cripps was still talking, the
Japanese dropped bombs on Indian towns. Though talks continued in
India, though innumerable avenues were explored, there was no real
will towards agreement. The Japanese were at the gates and it seemed
only a matter of time before they battered them down. The interven-
tion of Colonel Johnson, representing in some obscure way the inter-
ests of the American president, Franklin Roosevelt, only clouded the
issue. What could the United States do to help India, when America
too was fighting for her life?

Cripps and those elements in the war cabinet who supported him
were undoubtedly sincere, but it is questionable whether anyone else
was. Churchill had made his gesture of appeasement to the United

THE STRUGGLE

79

States and to the Labour members of the war cabinet. It was a gesture
without real meaning. Whether or not the Draft Declaration was
accepted by Indian nationalists, the fundamental problems of India’s
defence would be unaffected; even if they refused to co-operate at all,
experience had shown that Congress was unlikely to act as an efficient
fifth column for the Japanese.

Indian nationalists of all shades were unwilling to accept promises
redeemable only in the distant and rather gloomy future. Faced with
the strong possibility that there would be a successful Japanese invasion
of India — an invasion which would probably bring Subhas Bose with
it — many felt it better to have no truck with the British. If the national-
ists had really wanted immediate self-government, they would have
tried to arrive at some compromise amongst themselves. No such
attempt was made. In fact, the divisions became even sharper than they
had been before. Fundamentally, all the counter-proposals and argu-
ments put forward by the various nationalist organizations were a
bluff. Why, as Gandhi is reported to have asked, accept ‘a post-dated
cheque on a bank that was obviously failing’? Far better to save their
energies and reputations for negotiation with the Japanese.

This was, in the pattern of the times, an extremely sensible view.
There might be a number of sophisticated nationalist leaders who
genuinely hated the fascism and militarism of the Japanese, but there
was an overwhelming majority who were quite prepared to win
freedom with the help of the Asian power which had struck the first
successful blow against Western imperialism. Japan’s actions in China
were hardly pleasant from any point of view, but Indian nationalists
had a notoriously narrow view of the world outside India. ‘Asia for the
Asiatics’, the Japanese trumpeted, and it was a cry which automatically
provoked a response. Pressure upon the nationalist leaders was im-
mense, and there was no possibility that they would be allowed to
accept less from the British than they thought they stood to gain from
the Japanese.

When Churchill received news from India that the Cripps mission
had failed, he is reported to have danced around the cabinet room. No
tea with treason, no truck with American or British-Labour senti-
mentality, but back to the solemn — and exciting — business of war.

8o

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

p Quit India

The Cripps offer was so reasonable — in any other circumstances than
those under which it was made — that Indian nationalists were forced, to
disguise their real motives for rejecting it behind virulent criticism of
the proposals themselves. Jinnah attacked the Draft Declaration be-
cause ‘Pakistan was not conceded unequivocally, and the right of
Muslim self-determination was denied’. But Congress remained the
League’s first enemy; if the British had conceded immediate inde-
pendence, the new government would have been a ‘Fascist Grand
Council, and the Muslims and other minorities . . . entirely at the mercy
of Congress*. Congress chose to attack Cripps personally as the agent
of British reaction — in which they were not altogether wrong. The
Cripps mission, said one Congress newspaper, was ‘the result of
American pressure. It was a stage-managed show to buy off world
opinion and to foist pre-concerted failure on the people of India.’
Pandit Nehru found it ‘sad beyond measure that a man like Sir Stafford
Cripps should allow himself to become the Devil’s Advocate’.

At the meeting of the All-India Congress Committee held at
Allahabad in August 1942, a resolution was passed which stated that
if the Japanese invaded India they would be met by non-violent non-
coopc ration. The wording of the resolution concealed rather than
revealed Congress policy. In fact, Congress was preparing for nego-
tiations with the Japanese when they arrived. A police raid on the All-
India Congress Committee offices discovered notes, by Gandhi him-
self, for a draft resolution assuring the Japanese ‘that India bore no
enmity’ to them and that ‘if India were free, her first step would be to
negotiate with Japan’. Pandit Nehru had apparently protested against
the wording but had, as so often before, given in. In fact, he was no
longer in a position to influence the Committee. Rajagopalachari, still
campaigning for a sensible settlement with the Muslim League, resigned
from Congress, but only seven of his colleagues followed him. Gandhi
had turned his face against any compromise with the League. Congress,
he maintained, still spoke for India and no one else could. Let the
British give up and ‘leave India in God’s hands’, said Gandhi, once
again displaying his indifference to the real world. Have no fears about

THE STRUGGLE

8l

the communal problem; it was the British who created it, and when
they go it will go with them. Anarchy, internecine warfare, may follow
‘for a time’, but ‘from these a true India will arise in place of the false
one we see’.

Gandhi, however, could not maintain his extremist position with
any consistency. Allied forces, he had conceded, would be permitted
to remain in India ‘for the sole purposes of repelling a Japanese attack
and helping China’. Furthermore, ‘India’s ambassadors’ would go ‘to
the Axis powers not to beg for peace, but to show them the futility of
war ! Ambiguous phrases and contradictory nonsense continued to
roll out, but one clear-cut threat emerged, to use ‘non-violent strength’
against the government. Gandhi himself did not seem particularly
worried that non-violence might once again degenerate into violence.
If,’ he had said in July 1942, ‘in spite of precautions, rioting does take
place, it cannot be helped.’ Now the talking was over. It was to be
open rebellion. But these words of Gandhi’s further isolated Congress
from the rest of India, for they seemed to say that he was ignoring the
welfare of the very people he claimed to represent.

The moral collapse of the Congress leadership was a sorry sight.
Under the threat of a Japanese invasion, the really revolutionary ele-
ments in India had begun moving into the open, and it seemed that
Gandhi had taken over their slogans in a desperate bid to maintain his
position. He knew there were other Indians waiting to claim his
rn^ntle, men who had always preached violent revolution and who
now seemed about to be proved right. Obsessed as lie was with a
belief in his almost divine role as saviour of India, Gandhi intended to
lead India to freedom even if he had to use means which were the
negation of all he had previously stood for. Those who listen too often
to inner voices’ are driven into a world of horrifying fantasy, and the
Gandhi of 1942 was no exception. In August, the All-India Congress
Committee declared a ‘mass struggle’ to force Britain to quit India.
Their decision was welcomed by Gandhi in these words:

The voice within me tells me I shall have to fight against the whole world
^d stand alone. . . . Even if all the United Nations oppose me, even if the
whole of India tries to persuade me that I am wrong, even then I will go ahead,
not for India’s sake alone but for the sake of the world. ... I cannot wait any
longer for Indian freedom. I cannot wait until Mr Jinnah is converted. ... If I
Wait any longer, God will punish me. This is the last struggle of my life.’

82

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

But he was not to have the opportunity to struggle, for, next day,
he and the whole working committee, as well as a number of other
Congress leaders, were quiedy arrested. Gandhi’s parting shot was a
plea for non-violence, but ‘keep the nation alive even at the risk of
death’, he added.

When news of the arrests became public, non-violence broke out
with brickbats and knives. The government proclaimed a curfew and
prohibited meetings of more than five people. Congress was once
again declared illegal and the British set about suppressing what
appeared to be a full-scale rebellion. Extreme nationalists indulged in
extensive sabotage, while professional gangsters and religious fanatics
took advantage of the unrest to murder and loot. By the middle of
September, 250 railway stations had been destroyed or seriously
damaged and 550 post offices attacked. A large section of the railway
system was put out of action and communications were interrupted
to such an extent that the army on India’s northern frontier was
deprived of its main channel of supply. Police stations and government
buildings were set on fire, and many Indians still working for the
government were threatened if they did not join the rebels. A number
of those who refused were murdered.

The government used British troops and aircraft against mobs,
machine-gunning crowds from the air on at least five occasions.

Though the rebellion was undoubtedly organized, it was not well
planned. It did not trigger off a national uprising because too many
influential elements in the country not only held aloof but actively
supported the government. The first phase of large-scale sabotage and
violence had been suppressed by the end of August, and the second
phase, of isolated outbreaks, was virtually over by the end of the year.
The failure of the Congress campaign gave great satisfaction to Con-
servative circles in Britain. Had they not been right in always maintain-
ing that Congress did not represent the mass of the Indian people? One
thing had become clear from the rebellion, so Churchill said in the
House of Commons in September 1942, and that was the ‘non-repre-
sentative character’ of Congress and its ‘powerlessness to throw into
confusion the normal peace of India’.

Labour and Liberal members of parliament criticized Churchill’s
words and demanded that the Congress leaders be released from jail.
They also condemned the rebellion, however, though it is highly

THE STRUGGLE 83

unlikely that any of them appreciated the tangled motives that lay
behind it. Officially, the Labour party could do little; like everyone
else in Britain at that time it was primarily concerned with Britain’s
own life-and-death struggle with Germany and Japan. Clement
Attlee, the deputy prime minister, made it clear that no government
would be prepared ‘to negotiate with a people who are in rebellion*.
In any case, the Cripps offer expressed Labour views with reasonable
accuracy, and in spite of a number of improbable ‘solutions’ offered by
certain Labour members — including the suggestion that ‘a distinguished
Indian be appointed as the next viceroy and an invitation be sent to
the principal Allies to mediate’ — there was really very little difference
between Labour and Conservative opinion. Attlee, in a speech at
Aberdeen on 6 September, used phrases which, with only the slightest
modification, had been used by practically every British statesman for
the previous two decades. ‘We have made,’ he said, ‘many mistakes in
our treatment of the Indian problem but we have given India more
than a century of internal peace and good government and have in the
last twenty-five years made immense progress towards Indian self-
government. Further progress was held back by disagreement among
Indians and by the difficulties of introducing democracy into a coun-
try of 300,000,000 people at all stages of civilization.’

There is no doubt that, apart from a few (though highly influential)
dichards, most British politicians believed that Indians should rule
themselves. Forty years before, Lord Curzon — the last great viceroy in
tnc nineteenth century tradition — had said ‘in Britain there arc no two
parties about India’. He was still right in 1942. From a Conservative
point of view, the Indian empire was a wasting asset, and all parties
were agreed that democracy was the only possible system of govern-
ment for Britain to leave as the legacy of her rule, and that it must be
left only to an undivided India. It was, however, obvious even to the
stupidest of politicians that to hand over to an Indian government
dominated, as it would inevitably be, by Congress could only lead to
civil war. The British had not been prepared, and no political party
would have countenanced the attempt, to examine other forms of
government which might be better suited to India’s problems. By 1942,
it was too late. And in India, Congress — which stood to gain power in
a democratic system — would also have refused to consider other forms.
The twin essentials of democracy and an undivided India resulted in a

84 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

deadlock which was unbreakable, and the diehards whose spokesman
was Winston Churchill could therefore offer something they knew
would never be acceptable. It was the insistence of both Conservative
and Labour upon the virtues of democracy which made the partition
of India inevitable and, with it, the death of hundreds of thousands of
innocent people during the period of vivisection.

In India, Gandhi began a fast in order to force the government to
release him from jail. The Muslim League reiterated its demand for
recognition of the principle of partition. The Hindu Mahasabha
described Gandhi’s fast as ‘bound to be futile, detrimental and suicidal
and called for an ‘active movement’ to compel Britain ‘to defend the
integrity of India against Pakistani Muslims’. Many solutions were
offered to help break the continuing deadlock. The secretary of state
for India, L. S. Amery, said in the House of Commons, ‘It is for
Indians themselves to find the way’ out of the deadlock. Hardly a
practical proposition under the circumstances.

By the end of 1943, India was comparatively quiet; a few acts of
sabotage took place, a number of terrorists were loose in the country-
side, but on the whole those nationalists who were not in jail had given
up their efforts to take advantage of the absence of Congress. But there
were sinister signs of further communal trouble. The Muslim League s
demands for partition grew louder and louder, and the phrases it used
were larded freely with threats. The government was remarkably for-
bearing, for the speeches of the League leaders were undeniably incite-
ments to communal violence. Membership of Congress fell but that of
the Mahasabha, firmly communal and militant, rose. Other com-
munities— the Scheduled Castes Federation, which represented some
1 5 per cent of the population, and the Sikhs, among others — began to
take on a marked political edge. It seemed that the knives were being
sharpened.

10 Jai Hind!

The fight for India’s freedom was now to take place outside India and
the actions of one man were to have profound effect upon the future.
In India itself, the political situation appeared so quiet that the viceroy,
Lord Linlithgow, who had held office since 1937, was replaced in

THE STRUGGLE

85

October 1943 by a soldier, Lord Wavell. Though the new viceroy
quickly expressed his hopes that ‘I can better serve our cause and India
as a civilian’, there was little doubt that his appointment was to be part
of a new command structure designed to carry on the war against the
Japanese. Wavell also said ‘There is certainly no intention to set up
anything in the shape of military rule’, but in fact such an intention
would have been superfluous as the emergency regulations promul-
gated by the government of India were already the equivalent of martial
law. The Indian government had now a great soldier as its head and
the reason for this was obvious. Politics were to take second place to
the demands of war. The British government no longer seriously con-
sidered the possibility of a political settlement with Congress and, with
the Japanese now on Lidia’s north-east frontier, it was determined to
concentrate on immediate problems.

A few months before Wavell took over, Sublias Bose had arrived in
Tokyo after a journey by submarine and aircraft which lasted eighteen
weeks. His period of waiting in Germany was now over and he was
making preparations to ride to Delhi with the Japanese army. The
Japanese had already encouraged hidian prisoners of war in Malaya to
organize an ‘Indian National Army’. In this, they had been helped by
another Bose, Rash Bchari by name, who had founded an Indian
Independence League in Japan as far back as 1916. But the Japanese had
merely sought to utilize the League for forward intelligence and
sabotage while the Japanese army moved into India. It was Subhas
Bose who was to turn both the League and the National Army into a
genuine revolutionary movement aimed at liberating Lidia from the
British. Subhas had already acquired the aura of a hero, even in the
eyes of nationalist circles in India itself. Gandhi, the professional of non-
violence, had hailed him (now that he was at a safe distance) as a
patriot of patriots’ — but, Gandhi added, ‘misguided’. One British
Labour newspaper, on the basis of Bose’s broadcasts from Berlin, had
feared that it was ‘not opportunity knocking at our door ... it is
history battering it down’. Subhas seemed the embodiment of dynamic
action, with even Gandhi now apparently supporting him. Li October
I943» as Wavell reiterated the British promises of 1942, Bose was
proclaiming a ‘Provisional Government of Free India’ in Singapore.
Jai Hind [India forever] !’ he had cried, and the words soon became a
greeting between Indian nationalists. The British, however, remained

86 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

silent on the subject; ‘If only,’ Bose said bitterly, ‘they would abuse
us!’ But many Indians knew of his activities from broadcasts and
propaganda, and ironically enough it was to be the British who, though
they ignored him during the war, were to make him a legend after his
death. The ghost of Bose was to inhabit the conference rooms four
years later as India moved through the last days of British rule, and in
death he was to have the success denied to him in life.

The actual performance of the Indian National Army when, with
the reluctant approval of the Japanese, it finally set foot on Indian soil
and raised the Congress flag, was of comparatively little importance.
The British were by then on the offensive and the INA shared in the
debacle of the Japanese army in Burma.

Events in India were also on the move again. In May 1944, Gandhi
had been released from jail on grounds of ill health, although the
government was still not prepared to release the other Congress leaders.
Gandhi, the government insisted, had been let out only because his
health was in danger. This was merely the excuse for releasing him, and
the real reason was rather different. Despite Gandhi’s apparent conver-
sion to violence in 1942, the government was convinced that he had
now returned to his old ideas and could therefore once again be used
as a mediator. It was, however, necessary to keep him away from the
influence of more inflammatory Congress leaders such as Pandit Nehru.
If Gandhi could arrive at some arrangement with the Muslim League,
it might still be possible to hand over power to a united India. One
of Gandhi’s first acts after his release was to visit Jinnah. The Mahatma s
stay in prison had perhaps brought a belated sense of reality, for he
offered Jinnah a formula which envisaged the possibility of partition;
but there must, he insisted, be a provisional government at the centre
for a transitional period. In spite of this offer, there was no possibility
of compromise with Jinnah. He could play too well upon Muslim
fears that once there was a central government it would be dominated
by Congress, who would make it their business to see that the provinces
could not secede. Jinnah had smelt the coming of freedom and was not
prepared to give way on anything. Unlike many Congress leaders, Jinnah
did believe that the British really meant to leave India. They had by
implication conceded the principle of Pakistan. Why then should he
compromise when all he had to do was wait?

Gandhi had failed and the government was not prepared to co-

THE STRUGGLE

87

operate any further. It did not even bother to re-arrest him. Labour
members of parliament in London, sublimely ignorant of the real
nature of India’s troubles, still called for the one thing that was impos-
sible— the formation of a national government in Delhi. All this did
was convince Jinnah that he was right in refusing to compromise. Most
Labour members thought that Indian nationalists distrusted Britain
and that if this distrust could be removed all other problems would
fade away. But the really dangerous distrust was between Indian and
Indian, Congress and League, Hindu and Muslim, and to resolve it was
beyond the power of Westminster. When it seemed that the end
of the war and a British victory were in sight, all parties in Lidia began
to prepare for the final struggle. The Japanese no longer appeared as
the probable liberators of India. Subhas Bose no longer threatened the
old-guard leadership of Congress. The question now was whether the
promises of the Cripps mission were genuine or not.

On 14 June 1945, Lord Wavell, who had been recalled to London for
discussions, returned to India. The British government no longer
included Labour ministers. The war in Europe had been over since
May and a general election was soon to take place. The proposals which
Wavell took back to India in an attempt to break the old political dead-
lock had, however, been framed by the wartime coalition cabinet. The
principal advance over the Cripps offer of 1942 was that the viceroy’s
executive council should be entirely Indian except for the viceroy him-
self and the commander-in-chief. The council would give equal repre-
sentation to Muslims and Hindus. Wavell also announced that a
conference would be called at Simla to discuss the proposals and
that Congress leaders would be released from jail and invited
to attend.

The Simla conference did take place, but it was what happened out-
side that was decisive. Congress assumed that the division of seats in
the executive council between Muslims and caste Hindus was to be on
a religious rather than a political basis. Congress maintained tliat it
(Congress) was a secular body and would of course nominate Muslim
members of Congress for the Muslim scats. Jiimah, however, was not
prepared to accept this interpretation. The Muslim League, he claimed,
was the sole representative of Muslim interests; consequently, the
Muslim seats in the council should be filled by members chosen by the
Muslim League. To this the viceroy could not agree, since the division

88

of seats was intended to be purely religious. Jinnah refused to continue
the negotiations and the first Simla conference broke up in failure.

Not that this mattered very much. Congress thought, for by now a
new government had taken office in Britain. Churchill and the Con-
servatives had been rejected by the British electorate and the Labour
party had been swept to power with a large majority of the seats in
parliament. Would Labour fulfil its often reiterated pledge to give
India her freedom? On 15 August, as the war with Japan ended, the
speech from the throne at the opening of parliament at Westminster
contained these words: ‘In accordance with the promises already made
to my Indian peoples, my Government will do their utmost to pro-
mote in conjunction with the leaders of Indian opinion, the early
realization of full self-government in India/ The words themselves
were not very inspiring. ‘Full self-government’ did not sound like
independence. Three days later, in a hospital on the island of Formosa,
terribly burned after the crash of an aircraft taking him to Japan, Subhas
Chandra Bose lay dying. ‘Tell my countrymen,’ he said, ‘India will be
free before long.’ Soon his name and the tales of Ills exploits were to
help convert the emptiness of ‘full self-government’ into the reality of
independence.

PART THREE

The Victory

‘i never thought it would hap-
pen. I never expected to see
Pakistan in ray lifetime.’

M. A. Jinnah

‘history seems sometimes to
move with the infinite slowness
of a glacier and sometimes to
rush forward in a torrent.’

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i Dramatis Personae

With the Labour party now in power in Britain, hope grew in India
that self-government might really be only just around the comer. But
that hope was conditioned by past experience. It seemed likely that the
Labour government meant what it said, but this was not absolutely
assured. The Labour government must be made to sec that it was
essential to grant India her freedom, not only in fulfilment of Labour
promises but also in the interests of the British people. From the Con-
gress point of view, this called for a new approach. On the one hand,
the Labour government must be persuaded of the political sophistica-
tion of those to whom it would be handing power, and on the other
it must be made quite clear that the alternative to freedom was
violence.

This new approach meant that Gandhi had to be relegated to the
background, for he was hardly a symbol of political maturity. While
freedom had seemed far away, he was necessary both to Congress and
the British. Now it was Nehru the socialist, charming and flexible,
who was to fill the picture. Labour ministers would respond positively
to his civilized Western point of view; they could treat him as an equal.
Gandhi, like some Indian Rousseau, was of another century, another
and incomprehensible dimension, a man who spoke in the language
of the pre-industrial world. As socialism had been spawned by indus-
trial capitalism, it could hardly listen with patience and understanding
to the spokesman of a back-to-naturc philosophy. This was, in effect,
the end of Gandhi as a moulder of events. The mediator was no longer
needed, the saint with his phalanx of illiterate peasants could be put
aside. It was now the time for civilized negotiation between men who
spoke the same unapocalyptic language. The stake was not freedom

g2 the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

itself— for this seemed to have been agreed— but the pattern of that

freedom. Nehru now spoke for Congress.

In order to convince the British that violence was still possible.
Congress needed a second spokesman, to play another role that Gandhi
could not play. Just as the British had not feared Gandhi, the reducer
of violence, they no longer feared Nehru, who was rapidly assuming
the lineaments of civilized statesmanship — even elder statesmanship-
in response to the changed situation. The British, however, still feared
Subhas Bose or, rather, the violence he represented. Congress con-
cluded that the British administration in India, numerically wasted and
no longer sure of itself, could be frightened by the old threat of another
mutiny or of large-scale violence into advising the government not to
procrastinate. Unfortunately, India in 1945 seemed calm and peaceful.
The mass of the people was once again indifferent. There was nothing
to hand with which popular indignation could be excited, no Jallian-
walla Bagh nor anything remotely resembling it. But members of
Bose’s Indian National Army were returning to India and to their old
regiments. So were the Indian prisoners of war who had jomed the
Indian Legion raised by the Nazis. The death of Bose was now public
knowledge and he had acquired a halo of martyrdom and apotheosis.
Congress leaders, who had hated and feared Bose, were not at first
anxious to use the IN A as propaganda. After all, Bose had actually
fought and died in an attempt to free India; the surviving Congress
leaders had merely gone to jail. Then the British government in India
decided to court-martial certain IN A officers for making war against the
king-emperor. This decision at first received the support of Congress
until it began to realize that the trial could be made a focus of popular
indignation. Thereupon, Congress set up a defence committee for the
IN A officers. Counsel for the accused included Pandit Nehru himself.

The trial was the last display of ineptness by the British administra-
tion in India, the final proof— if at this stage such proof was needed—
that the Services who ruled India had, like the Bourbons, forgotten
nothing and learned nothing. The decision to prosecute was taken on
the sole initiative of the Indian government. That it was agreed to and
tacitly supported by the government at Westminster merely demon-
strated the doctrinaire attitude towards India which dominated the
Labour party’s thinking. In practice, the Labour government knew as
little about the realities of India as its predecessors had done.

THE VICTORY

93

With the assistance of the government of India, Bose and the IN A —
of whom millions of Indians had never heard — now became household
names. The trial was held at Delhi in the Red Fort, which had once
been the palace of the Mughal emperors. ‘The trial,’ Nehru wrote
afterwards, ‘dramatized ... the old contest; England versus India. It
became in reality not merely a question of law . . . but rather a trial of
strength between the will of the Indian people and the will of those
who held power in India.’ The prisoners were found guilty and sen-
tenced to be transported for life to the penal islands, but the com-
mandcr-in-chief, General Auchinleck, very sensibly remitted the
sentence of transportation. This remission was regarded by many as
an acquittal under duress.

The government of India had hoped, by prosecuting members of
the INA, to reinforce the morale of the Indian Army. It succeeded only
in creating unease, in making the soldiers feel slightly ashamed that
they themselves had supported the British. If Subhas and his men had
been on the right side — and all India now confirmed that they were —
then Indians in the Indian Army must have been on the wrong side. It
slowly dawned upon the government of India that the backbone of
British rule, the Indian Army, might now no longer be trustworthy.
The ghost of Subhas Bose, like Hamlet’s father, walked the battlements
of the Red Fort, and his suddenly amplified figure over-awed the
conferences that were to lead to independence.

The spectre of Subhas Bose also frightened Jinnah. Once again
Congress and the Hindu masses seemed to have been galvanized out of
their torpor. The threat of Hindu majority rule now seemed greater
and more immediate than ever before. But Jinnah saw clearly and
alarmingly that his dream was about to be fulfilled. Freedom was near,
and the key to that freedom was in Jinnah’s hand. Just as the thousand-
year Reich had been merely the sublimation of Hitler’s dream, so
Pakistan was the sublimation of Jinnah’s. To both these men — and they
had surprisingly much in common — the end was of considerably less
importance than the adventure of the means. For Jinnah, the Muslims
of India were the Volk , and the defeat of the Mughal empire had been
their Versailles. Out of the simple fears of a religious minority he had
created the image of a nation oppressed, which only he could liberate
from the dark shadow of subjection. Just as Hitler was not taken seri-
ously because of the absurdity of his philosophy, so neither Congress

94 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

nor the British had ever really taken Jinnah seriously. They thought
he was only a communal politican who could be coerced or even bribed
by promises and disclaimers. Instead he was beyond reason, a daemonic
figure, remote in his own dreams, ascetic except in the emotional
tenderness he felt for ‘his people’. Jinnah had not concerned himself
very much with the form of Pakistan, and his ideas were always rather
nebulous about what his people’s ‘homeland’ was to be. It was ‘Pakis-
tan , the symbol, that was important to him and in the end he left the
geographical problem for the British to solve. If Jinnah sometimes
seemed willing to compromise it was, like Hitler, only that he might
create further confusion amongst his enemies, for he thrived upon dis-
ruption. He delayed India’s freedom because he did not wish to be
faced with the reality of Pakistan. When it became obvious that the
British were going to leave India, he played out his part and remained
disruptive until the end.

There were other Indians who played minor roles in the drama. Not
the least of these were the criminals, known as goondas, who incited
religious riots and then profited from them by murdering and looting.
The religious zealots, both Hindu and Muslim, spoke their bloody
lines. Some of the princes, conspiring with English friends to keep and
enhance their states, added their contribution to the tragedy. But they
were only lesser characters.

There were the two viceroys, Lord Wavell and his successor who
fmally negotiated the transfer of power, Lord Mountbatten. Wavell’s
role was comparatively small, for, without any justification whatso-
ever, neither the British prime minister nor the Indian leaders trusted
him. In fact, Wavell’s virtues made him unsuitable for the office of
viceroy. He was blunt in the face of deviousness. He still thought that,
as viceroy, his was the ultimate responsibility for what went on in
India. He was a caretaker who refused to act like one. He believed, and
no reasonable person can deny that he was right, that he had a double
purpose — to carry out the British government’s policy for the devolu-
tion of power, and to ensure that, in the meantime, the government of
India did not neglect its responsibilities to those it still ruled. Unfortun-
ately, the times were not reasonable, nor was there a precedent for the
events in which he had become enmeshed; no great empire had ever
negotiated itself away after emerging victorious from a major war.
Wavell was naive enough to think that everyone should be as honest

THE VICTORY

95

as himself and that India’s leaders should be thinking of India and not
of themselves. But his was the naivete of a great human being, and his
greatness has been too much overshadowed by the reputation of the
man who took his place.

Lord Mountbatten’s advantages over Wavell were considerable. He
was extrovert, handsome, and had a natural charm. A relative of the
king-emperor, he brought with him to India some of that mysterious
glamour of royalty which appeals so much to Indians. Unlike Wavell,
who had been shuffled out of military command by the prejudice of
Winston Churchill, there shone around Mountbatten’s head the aura of
victory against the Japanese and of heroic action in the Navy. Further-
more, his mind was uncluttered with prejudices and he believed him-
self uninvolved. He had the kind of mind capable of viewing the
transfer of power as a military operation, to be carried out with des-
patch and a sort of clinical insensitivity. He came to India with one
overwhelming advantage — it was publicly known that he would be the
last viceroy. Nehru thought he was a ‘straightforward English socialist ,
a sort of Philippe Egalite in naval uniform. Wavell, on the other hand,
had been tainted with the guilt of that earlier government of India
which had clapped Congress leaders in jail in 1942.

In London, at the centre of all things, there was the not very impos-
ing figure of the new socialist prime minister, Clement Attlee. Just as
Nehru had been shocked into socialism by the condition of the Indian
peasant, so Attlee had been by the condition of the British working
class in the East End of London. The British Labour party attracted a
surprising number of such men from upper middle-class families, who,
because of the superior education and the self-assurance of their
class, naturally gravitated towards leadership. For many of them, the
Labour party, with its strong non-conformist background, resembled
a sort of secular Salvation Army. But apart from their socialism, there
were no other similarities between Nehru and Attlee and none wliatso-
cvcr between the parties they led. Attlee was no revolutionary, his
socialism was slow and cautious. Unlike Nehru, he was an exception-
ally good judge of men and events. He had always supported the
orderly, somewhat schoolmasterish British approach to self-govern-
ment for India. But this had been at a time when Britain was still
powerful, still able to carry out her obligations. Times had now
changed. Britain had emerged from the war seriously weakened and

gfi the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

would need all her resources for her own recovery. Attlee was above all
very conscious that, as the first Labour prime minister with a working
majority, his primary responsibility was to those who had elected him
to office. Labour voters were demanding a new deal and the fulfilment
oflong-stated promises. It seemed that Britain could be remade into a
socialist paradise and all pressures for doctrinaire reform were upon
the prime minister. The Labour party was prepared— had in fact been
conditioned over the years— to sacrifice India in order to create a new
Britain. It is one of the coincidences of history that as a party came to
power ready for sacrifice, there appeared to sensible men no alternative
but sacrifice. One sacrifice was to beget another. In India, the Congress
party was forced, because there seemed to be no acceptable alternative,

to sacrifice its dream of a united free India.

Of the factors that made up the equation of British India, two now

counted for very little: those who actually ruled, and the people of
India. The British element in the Civil Services had dropped to nearly
half what it had been in 1935- The Indian Army, which had grown
vastly during the war, had now about 11,400 British officers but would
have only 4,000 by 1947. The proportion of Indian officers would
naturally increase to fill the gap. The British members of the ICS
became more concerned with their own future than with that of India.
A few, out of a rather distorted sense of duty, were to play a minor and
essentially treasonable game with some of the Indian princes, but most

were anxious only to pack up and go home.

The people of India, apart from those butchered in riots in the back

streets of the cities, got on with the job of scraping a living. They were,
it seemed, not needed in the last act, though they and their leader,
Gandhi, would be kept on call. They still had the Mahatma moving
amongst them to divert their minds to other and more comprehensible
things than the comings and goings of strange men at Delhi.

Nor did the British people have any active role to play. As we shall
see, however, one of the factors that contributed to the speed at which
the transfer of power was finally made was the Labour government s
desire to see that they did not become active.

THE VICTORY

97

2 Three Wise Men

Though the Simla conference had produced nothing of value except a
restatement of Jinnah’s claim for Pakistan — a claim which practically
no one, at least in Congress, took seriously — one thing had been agreed.
Elections must be held in India as soon as possible. Both Congress and
the League needed the election results as public proof of their power
and their representative character. Certainly, elections were long over-
due. The Central Assembly had been elected as far back as I934»
the provincial legislatures in 1937. Everyone agreed that by now these
bodies were totally unrepresentative of the electorate. In fact, the
government would have been wise to have held the elections before the
Simla conference; then Congress and the League would have been able
to base their claims on up-to-date foundations, and it is possible
that the conference might have had a rather different outcome because
of that. The excuse, an essentially sound one, had been that elections
were impossible under wartime conditions. On 21 August 1945, how-
ever, the government announced that elections would take place as
soon as possible.

Before the actual date for them was set, the viceroy, Lord Wavell,
was recalled to London for consultations with the new Labour govern-
ment. On his return, he brought with him very little comfort. The
Labour government seemed to think that the Cripps offer of three
years earlier was still sufficient. After the elections, it was announced,
the viceroy would take steps to bring representative Indians into his
Executive Council, and a constitution-making body would be con-
vened as soon as possible. There was no mention of ‘independence —
only the usual phrases, eroded of meaning by constant repetition over
the years: ‘self-government’, ‘full self-government’, ‘early achieve-
ment of full self-government’, and so on. It was obvious that the new
Labour government was still thinking in terms of dominion status, of
Tree and equal partnership’. It was as if a new stepfather had decided to
give his grown-up son a separate set of rooms in the family mansion,
when what the boy really yearned for was a place of his own away
from parental control. Congress quite understandably described these
anaemic proposals as ‘vague, inadequate and unsatisfactory . Most

98 the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

political parties in India felt the same way. Perhaps the most soul-
destroying thing of all was that there was to be no immediate change.
For example, the old ministries which had resigned in 1939 were not
to be allowed to form interim governments in the provinces in the
period before the elections. Nor was the very restricted franchise-
only io per cent of the population had voting rights to be enlarged.
It looked as if the Labour government was not only offering the same
old proposals but the same built-in reasons for rejecting them. It seemed
to be a false dawn.

Nevertheless, the parties began to build up their organizations and
to frame their election promises. The Muslim League, characteristically,
was not much concerned with a detailed and constructive programme.
For the League there were only two fighting issues — Pakistan, and the
proof that the Muslim League was the only organization that could
speak for the Muslims of India.

Congress made it clear that its programme was based on the ‘Quit
India resolution of 1942, and that it would contest the election ‘to
show that the inevitable result . . . must be to demonstrate the over-
whelming solidarity of opinion of the voters on the issue of inde-
pendence’. Flicking Jinnah aside, the statement loftily continued:
‘Therefore in this election, petty issues do not count nor do individuals
nor sectarian cries — only one tiling counts : the freedom and indepen-
dence of our motherland from which all other freedoms will flow to

our people.*

These were admirable sentiments, no doubt, but they only partly
concealed a widening division in the ranks of the Congress leadership.
Hindus and Muslims were divided in Congress as elsewhere. The
president of Congress, Maulana Azad — himself a Muslim — said that
Congress did accept the principle of self-determination, ‘even to the
extent of separation under certain circumstances’. He personally,
however, thought the division of India would not be to Muslim
advantage. In any case, if separation was desired, the present provincial
boundaries would have to be redrawn. Muslim League newspapers,
already condemning Azad as a traitor, now accused him of advocating
a ‘maimed, mutilated Pakistan’. Hindu Congressmen, led by Patel,
would have none of Azad’s ‘reasonableness’. For Patel, there was not
going to be any partition of India on religious grounds. The usual
confused rigmarole now emanated from Congress spokesmen. Freedom

THE VICTORY

99

must come to a united Lidia, they insisted — though, of course, Congress
‘cannot think in terms of compelling people’! Confusing phrases
implied confused thought, and obscure language and conditional
clauses satisfied no one. But one thing was sure. The bulk of
Congress was not prepared to compromise with the Muslim
League.

The result of this war of words was that the elections were fought,
not over independence, but on the issue of a united Lidia or a divided
one. Whatever Congress had hoped to gain by contesting the elections
on an independence platform was doomed to failure — the communal
issue became paramount, and the emphasis on independence, by which
Congress had tried to divert the electorate from the communal prob-
lem, soon had serious repercussions on the peace of India. The IN A
trials were used by Congress propagandists to glorify the right to rebel
against foreign rule, and Pandit Nehru called on the people to prepare
‘for a mass batde for freedom’. This and many other inflammatory
speeches by Congressmen increased unease, encouraged rioting, and
convinced the Muslims that Congress was in a warlike mood. Was
Congress only pretending to threaten the British while it really meant
to threaten the Muslim League? It seemed likely.

Congress leaders demanded that the British get out and leave the
communal problem to them. ‘Civil war if need be’ formed the theme
of many speeches. The general implication was that if Jinnah wanted
Pakistan then he would have to fight for it.

The British government now became concerned over real violence,
for rioting and disorder were rife and there was a threat of more. The
new secretary of state for India, Lord Pcthick-Lawrence, after repeat-
ing that elections were an indispensable step towards self-government,
announced in December that a parliamentary delegation representing
the three major British political parties would go to Lidia in order to
assure Indian leaders of Britain’s sincerity. This dazzling offer seemed
finally to prove that the Labour government was incapable of any new
approach. It talked like its predecessors and it acted like them. Wearing
the straitjackct of precedent, was it not likely to think in the same
antique and often-discredited terms? The announcement was treated
with an almost unanimous lack of enthusiasm. The delegation was not
only composed of nonentities, it did not even have instructions to
make an official inquiry nor submit an official report. Where an

H

100

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

imaginative and dynamic gesture was called for, all the Labour
government could think of doing was to send a second-rate goodwill
mission.

The elections, fought over the real issues of unity or division, re-
vealed that Congress and the Muslim League did have overwhelming
support from the Hindu and Muslim communities respectively.
Congress won all the elective seats in the Central Assembly except
those reserved for Muslims, which were won by League candidates.
In the provinces, Congress increased its representation over the 1937
results and won absolute majorities in eight provinces, and in the remain-
ing three it was the second largest party. The Muslim League which, in
1937, had won only 108 seats out of the 492 reserved for Muslims, now
captured 428, although in two of the provinces — Assam and the
North-west Frontier Province — which were claimed by Jinnah as part
of Pakistan-to-be, Congress had gained absolute majorities. In the
remaining three provinces that were to make up the proposed Muslim
state — Bengal, Sind and the Punjab — the League, though the largest
single party, did not have an absolute majority. From these results, it
may appear as if the League had failed even in the heartland of its
chosen territory. But this is not really true, as the number of seats
allotted to Muslims under the 1935 constitution was less than it should
have been in relation to the size of the Muslim population. The new
voting pattern, however, made it clear that other minority parties were
of little consequence. India was divided between Congress and the
Muslim League.

For Britain at least the elections seemed to simplify the problem. She
had always maintained that it was her unavoidable duty to protect the
minorities, but it was now clear that she could not protect them all.
Henceforth the smaller communities must remain 011 the periphery.
Britain could no longer concern herself with their welfare. The prob-
lem, in fact — as had always been the case since Jinnah became leader of
the Muslim League — concerned Hindus and Muslims only. Clement
Attlee voiced this realization in the House of Commons in March 1946.
‘We cannot make Indians responsible for governing themselves,’ he
said, ‘and, at the same time, retain over here the responsibility for the
treatment of minorities and the power to intervene on their behalf.’
One of the basic tenets of British rule in India — that its justification
rested in protection of the weak — had been washed away at the polling

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IOI

booths. The British government could no longer delude itself with the
moral arguments of the past. The problem had now been brought
home to the government as it had to the Indian voter. Unity or
division. To those, all things must be subordinate.

The British government recognized that it would have to make
some positive gesture if there was to be any solution at all. Pressures,
both overt and secret, were growing. Indians seemed incapable of
constructive decision. The only answer was to produce a detailed plan
which could be argued over and modified if necessary; but the Labour
government was as enmeshed in the old mystique as the Conservatives
and Liberals who had gone before. It was not as yet ready to capitulate
to the terrible logic of Indian reality. The Labour party was deter-
mined to rid itself of India — but not of history. It was perfectly willing
to dissolve the empire, but not to break it up. None of its members
wanted Britain to become only a tiny island off the coast of Europe,
and it occurred to them that a great Commonwealth could have as
much, if not more prestige than a dependent empire. India had been the
visible symbol of British greatness. An independent India would natur-
ally assume the old British role in Asia. If the business was to be
handed down, it had to be handed down as a unit. Attlee announced in
February 1946 that a Cabinet Mission of three wise men would visit
India. These were Sir Stafford Cripps, president of the board of trade,
Lord Pcthick-Lawrcncc, secretary of state for Lidia, and A. V.
Alexander, first lord of the Admiralty.

The choice, on the surface at least, was not particularly exciting.
Cripps, the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ of 1942; Pethick-Lawrencc, a gener-
ous, honest man whose reputation appeared to be founded on an early
involvement in the suffragette movement; and Alexander, a party
stalwart whose career gave no indication that he could contribute very
much to the solution of a complex and alien problem. Their cabinet
rank, however, rather than the men themselves was an indication of the
importance the government attached to their visit. To Indians, it seemed
that the British government at last was serious. To reinforce this im-
pression, Attlee announced that the mission’s purpose was to set up a
constitution-making body and a representative Executive Council.
They would take to India with them no British proposals for the form
of the constitution — that was for Indians themselves to decide, without
interference. Furthermore, there was now no question of dominion

102 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

status. If Indians wanted to remain within the Commonwealth, it was
to be their choice and theirs alone.

Among these unambiguous statements, one cryptic remark was to
stand out like a sore thumb, and it is not too fanciful to say that it
provided one of the reasons for the mission’s failure. ‘We are very
mindful,’ said Attlee, ‘of the rights of minorities and minorities should
be able to live free from fear. On the other hand , we cannot allow a
minority to place a veto on the advance of the majority .’ If this had any
meaning at all, it was directed against the Muslim League. ‘The issue is,
to give a simile,’ Jinnah remarked, ‘walk into my parlour, said the
spider to the fly, and if the fly refuses it is said that a veto is being
exercised and the fly is being intransigent.’ Did the British government
still think of the Muslims as a minority, when for all these years Jinnah
had been proclaiming that they were a nation? The mission, on the day
after its arrival in India, tried to eradicate this unfortunate impression,
but it is doubtful whether they succeeded in doing so.

Cripps and Pethick-Lawrcnce — Alexander was merely a pas-
senger— soon became aware of the tragic realities of the Indian political
scene. They listened to many different points of view, and what they
heard only reinforced the actuality of the Hindu-Muslim confrontation.
Would there be a civil war if Britain left, having handed over power to
a Congress-dominated Centre? If there was a civil war, there were
men and nations who might take advantage of it. Britain’s wartime
honeymoon with Russia was over and the old fears had returned. In
Tsarist days, Russia had always been the main threat to India, and only
the strength and unity that Britain had imposed had protected the
country from invasion from the north. The Soviet Union, which had
revived a good deal of Tsarist legend to boost morale during the war,
might also revive the Tsarist dream of conquering India. Even if this
thought were merely a nightmare, civil war would be sure to affect
British business interests in India just when they were most needed to
bolster the tottering economy of a war-exhausted Britain. But the
solution of partition seemed almost as hazardous as leaving India to
Congress. The Indian Army would have to be divided; so would the
public services. There would be an unavoidable period of administra-
tive and military chaos which might be almost as bad as a civil war.
Nevertheless, the mission was forced to choose between two evils, and
it seemed to them that partition might well be the lesser.

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103

To the problem that faced the Cabinet Mission there appeared to be
only one key, and that was held by Muhammad Ah Jinnah. But what
did he want? Pakistan, the League claimed, must comprise the whole
of the provinces of Assam, Bengal, the Punjab, the North-West
Frontier Province, Sind, and Baluchistan. If this was conceded, how-
ever, it would mean that the new state would also include large areas
where Muslims were in fact in a minority. The alternative — to slice off
the Muslim-majority areas from the rest of the Punjab and Bengal —
would only create other problems, for, in both provinces, there was a
common language and a common tradition shared by both Muslims
and Hindus. To divide the Punjab would also mean cutting in two the
homeland of some four million Sikhs, who could hardly be expected
to view the prospect with equanimity. Furthermore, Pakistan itself
would thus be divided into two halves, each with a dangerous frontier,
and with eight hundred miles of India in between. From any reasonable
point of view, it would be something of an abortion. But this was
hardly the time for logic — reason had been blown away in the growing
storm of emotion. Congress was demanding that Britain should ‘Quit
India’, while the League demanded that she should ‘Divide and Quit’,
implying that Britain should not leave until she had imposed partition,
by force if necessary. In the meanwhile, however, the League was pre-
pared to join a reformed Executive Council, although only on the
understanding that Congress would accept the principle of partition
and that there should be two constituent assemblies, one for Pakistan
and the other for the rest of India.

The solution offered by Congress was the old one — let Britain with-
draw and India would settle her own problems. The Labour govern-
ment, however, was even less likely to accept this solution than the
Conservative administration had been. If Lidia exploded into civil
war, the Labour government would be held responsible— just as, years
later, the Belgian government was to be held responsible for the tragedy
of the Congo. The Labour government might just manage to justify
its actions in Britain — though even this seemed unlikely — but in the
eyes of the world it would appear to have been callous and indifferent
to the sufferings of those who had depended upon it. Some Congress-
men suggested — and it showed that there was a sizeable body of opinion
that had very little faith in the ability of Indians to settle their own
problems peacefully — that the Pakistan issue might be submitted to

4 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

some international tribunal. But did this really offer a way out of the
deadlock? What if neither side agreed to accept an outside award?
Who was going to impose it? Certainly not the British, who were in a
hurry to leave. There was no alternative; the mission would have to
search for some sort of workable compromise.

Congress itself occasionally seemed ready to explore the possi-
bilities, but it spoke with conflicting voices. Some of its leaders were so
inconsistent that it was impossible to know what their opinions really
were. One day Nehru would proclaim that he was ‘prepared to view
with respect a demand for Pakistan if it is made after the freedom of
the country had been achieved’ — a statement both reasonable and
accommodating. But a few days earlier, he had said that ‘Congress is
not going to agree to the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan under
any circumstances whatsoever, even if the British government agrees
to it . Patel, too, declared that there could be no compromise on Paki-
stan, yet remarked that Congress would be prepared to give ‘the fullest
autonomy possible in the areas in which Muslims are predominandy
in the majority . But, he added, ‘subject to a strong Centre*. There is

little wonder that Jinnah found it easy to keep up Muslim tensions and
fears.

Once again it was to be Maulana Azad who suggested the basis for a
compromise. The formula he offered was deceptively simple. There
s ould be, he said, full autonomy for the provinces in a loose federation,
with a central government responsible only for defence, foreign
affairs and communications, although the provinces should be able to
ce e powers to the Centre in order to allow overall economic and
administrative planning. The mission’s view— it was really that of
Cripps, who had a brilliant analytical mind unsullied by the emotions
o ordinary men w as that the last part of the suggestion, the ceding of
powers to the Centre, would not work for purely functional reasons.

ic mission then departed for a short holiday in Kashmir, expressing
t e naive hope that while they were away the two parties might
arrive at a settlement for themselves. When the mission returned and
ound that no such settlement had been achieved, it began once again
the weary round of talks with Congress and League leaders.

The result was a new proposal very little different from that sug-
gested by Azad there would be a central government responsible for
defence, foreign affairs and communications, and the provinces would

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105

be divided into two groups, one predominantly Hindu and the other
Muslim. The mission invited Congress and the League each to send
four negotiators to explore the possibility of an agreement on this
basis. This they did, and the conference opened at Simla on 5 May
1946. The delegates seemed to be treating the proposals seriously, and
the mission supplied a mass of data outlining the details of how such an
arrangement might work. It was all highly ingenious — on paper. A
sort of lawyer’s brief for a test case in a legal textbook.

If the proposals had been accepted they would not have worked,
because the Centre would have been weak and divided. The plan could
only have functioned if the continuing goodwill of all parties was
guaranteed, and it was most unlikely that, even if initial goodwill could
be created, it would survive more than the first few months of inde-
pendence. To even the detached observer, the plan looked like a clever
trick by which Britain might slip out from under the burden of
choice.

Surprisingly enough, it seemed that both Congress and the League
were approaching the proposals with unprecedented seriousness, but
in reality the two parties were speaking different languages and had no
interest in understanding each other. Any suggestion of a strong central
government was anathema to the League but axiomatic for Congress.
Later, the mission tried to claim that both parties had been ‘prepared
to make considerable concessions’ but it was deluding itself and the
public in saying so. Congress had apparently agreed to provincial
groupings, but only if there was to be a strong Centre. The League was
prepared to submit to a central government, but only if it was weak.
In reality, no concessions had been made at all. Reluctantly, the mission
was compelled to announce the failure of the Simla conference.

The mission, however, had not reached the end of its resources and,
with the approval of the British government, it proposed its own
immediate solution. The statement contained one paragraph which
read: ‘We (the mission] are unable to advise the British government
that the power which at present resides in British hands should be
handed over to two entirely separate sovereign states. . . .’ Instead it
proposed an Indian Union, very much as before, with autonomy for
the provinces. The provinces were to be ‘free to form groups’. A new
idea was that there could be reconsideration of the arrangements every
ten years, but the main virtue of the proposals lay in their outline of a

106 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

way ill which the constitution-making body might be set up. The
mission also advocated the immediate formation of an interim govern-
ment. Fundamentally, in fact, what they now offered was not a solution
but the machinery for arriving at one. The statement ended with a
claim that the plan offered a way for India to attain independence ‘in
the shortest time and with the least danger of internal disturbance and
conflict’. The alternative, it said, could only be ‘a grave danger of
violence, chaos and even civil war*.

The mission’s attempt— and basically it was no more than this — to
substitute action for talk was, to its surprised satisfaction, received
favourably by both Congress and the League. Gandhi, with inapposite
rhetoric, hailed the plan as containing *a seed to convert this land of
sorrow into one without sorrow and suffering’.

Both sides, inevitably, interpreted the proposals to suit themselves.
Congress said that the clause on grouping meant that each province
could choose either to join the appropriate group or to stay out. The
League, on the other hand, believed the clause meant that grouping
would be compulsory. This analysing of words was yet another
example of the different ways in which the British and Indians treated
the language — the British with characteristic looseness, and the Indians
with dictionary precision. ‘Free to form groups,’ said the lawyers of
Congress, implied freedom not to form groups. The mission said this
was not what they meant; it was their intention that grouping should
be compulsory.

Nevertheless, the mission seemed to have achieved a major break-
through. The Muslim League accepted the proposals on the under-
standing that grouping would be compulsory, and Congress announced
that it was prepared to co-operate in setting up a constituent assembly.

Congress did question a number of points, one of which was the
right of Europeans to representation in the constituent assembly.
Because of the special provisions of the Government of India Act of
1935, Europeans were to be entitled to representation vastly out of
proportion to their number. In Bengal and Assam, for example,
twenty-one thousand Europeans would, on the present basis, elect as
many members as would seven million of the rest of the population.
In any case, Congress said, if Indians were to be solely responsible for
deciding their own future, why should the European community have
any representation at all? The mission replied that it was not prepared

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107

to deprive Europeans of their vote. When the elections were held,
however, the Europeans did in fact abstain from voting. Congress also
protested against British troops remaining in India during the interim
period before independence, although it was later to be thankful for
their presence.

Other political groups in India were outspoken against the proposals,
for they seemed to ignore all but Congress, League and British interests.
The Scheduled Castes Federation declared that the plan’s vague pro-
vision for their protection was ‘absolutely illusory and unworthy of
serious consideration’. The Sikhs of the Punjab, foreseeing the liquida-
tion of their homeland, stated that ‘no constitution will be acceptable to
the Sikhs which does not meet their just demands and is settled without
their consent’, and they began to prepare themselves to resist partition.
The Hindu Mahasabha rejected the ‘principle of regionalism based on
communalism’ and its agents stepped up their incitement of religious
violence. The princes, on the other hand, who had been told that after
British parainountcy lapsed they would be able to negotiate their own
position with the successors, accepted the proposals with some quali-
fications.

The Cabinet Mission seemed justified in its satisfaction with the
Congress and League attitudes to the setting up of a constituent assem-
bly. For the first time, Jinnah appeared openly co-operative, though he
had repeated that a ‘sovereign Pakistan’ was the unalterable objective
of the Muslims of India’. In reality, however, he had not changed his
attitude, only his tactics. Not for one moment did he believe that the
Congress tiger had given up its hope of swallowing the Muslims. Soon
he was to have his judgement confirmed.

Maulana Azad, who had at least shown real awareness of the depth
of Muslim feelings, relinquished the office of Congress president to
Pandit Nehru. Though inconsistent by nature, on one issue Nehru was
totally consistent; he did not like Jinnah and the Muslim League. He
genuinely hated parties based upon narrow religious motives. To him,
communalism was a monster, whose head was the League and whose
claws were stained with the blood of innocent men murdered in the
sordid streets of the cities. Jinnah lie viewed with contempt as the
fascist demagogue he was. Nehru believed, against all the evidence —
including the voting figures in the last election — that Jinnah had no
real backing. Ironically enough, it was Nehru s contempt for the

108 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

strength of the Muslim League that helped convince the British that
partition was necessary if a civil war was to be avoided.

Nehru had inherited the mantle of Gandhi, but he also spoke as the
rational exponent of a rational socialism, and his distaste for Jinnah
struck a chord in both the left and right wings of Congress. At this
critical time, however, he displayed a total lack of statesmanship.
Congress, he replied to a journalist, who asked him whether his party
accepted the Cabinet Mission plan in every detail, was ‘completely
unfettered by agreements’. How pleased Jinnah must have been;
Congress was working for him — and in double shifts. Enemies of
Nehru today, from Congressmen who would like to see his influence
destroyed, to employees of Lord Beavcrbrook, have condemned him
for this and other statements made at this time. On Nehru has been
placed a large part of the blame for the partition of India. His contempt
lor Jinnah has been unfavourably contrasted with the pragmatic
intelligence of Maulana Azad. But blame will not be so readily appor-
tioned by those who have followed the history of the Hindu-Muslim
conflict in die early pages of this book. The gap between Hindu and
Muslim was by now unbridgeable, and Nehru’s speeches were not the
isolated remarks of one leader. Hundreds of others were saying just
the same thing, aldiough Westernized intellectuals like Nehru did not
reach their conclusions by the same process as the majority of Congress.
It just so happened that the progressives’ distaste for religion disguised
as politics in the end added up to the same thing as reactionary Hindu
dislike of Islam. In the main, Congress was a Hindu party inadequately
disguised behind a secular mask.

Congress assisted Jinnah in his campaign for Pakistan, and its spokes-
men supplied him with the bulk of his propaganda. But it was age-old
fears that sustained him, fears concerned with murder and oppression
and not with Western political shibboleths. The mistake of many
people at the time, and of most commentators later, was to believe that
Jinnah s main aim was to create a new state of Pakistan, when in fact
all his actions were negative, directed at preventing an undivided.
Congress-dominated India. In dealing with him, the Azads and the
Rajagopalacharis — honest, reasonable men searching for honest,
reasonable solutions — had no hope of success. Fanaticism cannot be
opposed by reason. Jinnah could afford to seem accommodating at
one moment and intractable at the next, but at no time did he make

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an actual concession, nor did he have any intention of honouring a
promise. Nehru may have exhibited petulance and conceit, but even
if he had dispensed nothing but sweetness and light it would have
made no difference to Jinnah. It could only have resulted in delaying
independence while the British searched for a solution it was no longer
possible to find.

Discussions over the composition of the proposed interim govern-
ment, which had been going on simultaneously with the controversy
over the constituent assembly, made it clear that the League— while
apparently accepting the long-term proposals for setting up a con-
stituent assembly — was not really being co-operative at all. The nub
of the problem still concerned the allotment of scats between the
various parties and interests. Wavell had tried to get agreement on a
Centre composed of Hindus and Muslims in equal proportions plus
representatives of the minorities. He had suggested five representatives
from Congress, five from the League, and two from the minorities.
Congress, which had reluctantly approved the principle of parity at the
Simla conference of 1945, was in 1946 not prepared to accept it.
Wavell now put forward an ingenious compromise — a council of
thirteen consisting of six Congress representatives, of whom one must
be drawn from the ‘scheduled castes’, five from the League, and two
from the minorities. Thus parity would actually be maintained between
Hindus and Muslims, yet Congress would have one more seat. But
there was no hope that the League would be duped by this sleight of
hand. Jinnah said that when the five : five : two formula had been
offered to him the viceroy had assured him that it was final. Wavell
denied this. Jinnah responded by offering to put the new formula to
his working committee only after Congress had agreed to it. Congress,
however, would have nothing to do with it. The deadlock continued.

Again, the Cabinet Mission and the viceroy tried to get things
moving by publishing their own proposals and inviting the parties to
accept them. But the mission’s proposals were only another variant on
Wavcll’s last offer: six Hindu members of Congress, including one
from the ‘scheduled castes’, five from the League, one Sikh, one Indian
Christian, and one Parsec. The mission excused its lack of originality
by saying that its proposals were designed only to settle the composi-
tion of the interim government and implied no commitment for any
other occasion. The statement, as always, ended with a clause

no THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

(paragraph 8) so phrased as to allow different interpretations of its
precise meaning.

‘In the event of the two major parties or either of them proving unwilling to
join in the setting up of a Coalition Government on the above lines, it is the
intention of the viceroy to proceed with the formation of an Interim Govern-
ment which will be as representative as possible of those willing to accept the
Statement of May idth [concerning the constituent assembly].’

Congress and the League reacted to the proposals in the way that any
intelligent person would have expected. Neither of them was taken in
by the mission’s juggling with figures. The League complained that
it would be in a perpetual minority, Congress that there was parity
between Hindus and Muslims. Both parties had other objections but
these paled into insignificance when the newspapers reported that
Congress contemplated appointing a Muslim Congressman to one of
its seats. To this provocation, Jinnah reacted by insisting that Muslim
League representatives must be the only Muslims. This of course
Congress could not accept, because it would be an admission of the
truth of Jinnah’ s contention that Congress was a Hindu organization
and not the secular national party it claimed to be.

Rejecting Wavell’s argument that the nominations of a Congress
Muslim to a Hindu seat would be most improper, the Congress Work-
ing Committee met on 25 June and officially refused the viceroy s
terms for an interim government. It had really no alternative but to
reject Jinnah’ s challenge to its claim that it was an organization repre-
senting the whole of the Indian people. The working committee also
officially announced that, though it accepted the Cabinet Missions
proposals for setting up a constituent assembly, it did so only on the
basis of its own interpretation of what these proposals actually meant.

The mission was now faced with two acceptances hedged by all
manner of variable reservations. But it believed that if it could get the
League and Congress together in a constituent assembly, good sense
would prevail and some reasonable settlement would be arrived at. It
was obvious that the mission was living in a never-never land of its
own devising, although there may have been an excuse for this. Cripps
and Pethick-Lawrcncc were tired men, anxious to get home and
participate in the remaking of Britain as a socialist paradise. It was the
height of the hot weather in India, the season when the Delhi climate

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III

has a stifling, scaring embrace, and the mission had been negotiating
at high pressure for nearly three months in an atmosphere heavy with
unreality. Cripps and Pethick-Lawrence decided to assume that,
despite the reservations, Congress and the League had genuinely
accepted the scheme for setting up a constituent assembly. But the
League had not yet stated its position on the question of an interim
government. Jiimah, the mission, and the viceroy met on 25 June, when
Jinnah was told that Congress’s rejection of the interim government
proposals meant that, under the terms of paragraph 8, the whole scheme
had broken down, but that the viceroy would be prepared to re-open
negotiations after a short interval. Elections for the constituent assem-
bly— the body which was to frame a constitution — were however
imminent and it might be as well to get them over first.

Jinnah went straight from this interview to a meeting of the Muslim
League Working Committee. There he told members that he inter-
preted paragraph 8 to mean that, if the League accepted the proposals
for an interim government, the viceroy was bound to form one, even
if it excluded Congress. Jinnah accused both the mission and the viceroy
of a breach of faith and demanded postponement of the elections for
the constituent assembly. As preparations for these were already far
advanced, the viceroy wrote briskly to Jinnah that: ‘We do not propose
to postpone them.’ He also appointed a caretaker government to func-
tion until such time as the political leaders could agree on the composi-
tion of a new one.

The Cabinet Mission left India on 29 June under the impression that,
despite everything, at least a constituent assembly would come into
being. It carried with it to Westminster the air of unreality in which it
had operated in India, for both Cripps and Pethick-Lawrence
claimed in the British Parliament that the mission had been a success.
But apart from a very doubtful acceptance of a constituent assembly,
the mission had produced no change in the attitude of the two major
parties. Congress was not prepared to move an inch from its position
that power must be transferred to a united Lidia. The League was still
determined that this should never happen. The wise men from the
West had brought no instant panaceas in their baggage, nor even a
great deal of understanding of the problems they were supposed to
solve. But at least one thing was now indisputable — the British really
meant to leave India, and within a very short time. Even this, however.

1 12

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

created new problems, for there was now no incentive towards com-
promise between Congress and the League. There would be no need
for a war of independence against Britain, only for a war of succession,
a fight over the inheritance. The possibility was no longer rebellion.
It was civil war.

3 The Menacing Shadows

While the Cabinet Mission had been in India there had been compara-
tive peace in the narrow streets of her crowded cities, but the peace was
only an insecure lid on a bubbling pot. Other happenings, however,
were to have an effect on the Labour government’s future plans, for
the trustworthiness of the armed forces — on whom a great deal of the
responsibility for any peaceful transfer of power would ultimately he —
came into question. In the middle of January 1946, the British authori-
ties, who had always feared the possibility of revolt in their Indian
units, were shocked by a mutiny amongst the British. The ground and
maintenance units at Dum Dum airport near Calcutta and at other
RAF stations in India and the Middle East mutinied over delays in
repatriation and demobilization. The great majority of the men were
civilian conscripts, anxious only to be freed from the petty restriction of
service life, who apparendy believed that a Labour government — their
government — should do something about it. They offered no vio-
lence to their officers, for their action was more of a strike than a
mutiny, but in Calcutta jittery service chiefs had troops standing by.
The mutineers, however, received reassurance from a visiting Labour
member of parliament, and returned to work. But the red fight had
gone on. Could an army consisting almost entirely of unwilling
conscripts be kept in India and used on riot and other demoralizing
duties? And could a Labour prime minister be prepared to extend the
military service of the sons of his principal supporters in order that they
might shoot down Indians?

The immediate effects, however, were of more consequence than
speculations about the future. The Royal Indian Air Force, imitating
the RAF, also became insubordinate and even went so far as to declare
its sympathy with the INA. But again there was no violence. That was
to be left to the Indian Navy. In Bombay, the principal naval base, a

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number of ratings refused to eat or attend parade. The next day, three
thousand Indian sailors mutinied on board their ships and in barracks
ashore. They removed their officers — who were all white — attacked
British soldiers in the streets of Bombay and roamed the city in lorries
covered with slogans and the flags of Congress and the Muslim League.
They were, however, soon rounded up — significantly enough, by
Indian troops — without casualties on cither side, and the mutineers
were confined to their barracks. The next day, however, they tried to
break out and the troops guarding them opened fire. Some ratings,
who had evaded capture, attacked the Indian soldiers with small arms
and grenades. The British called up aircraft but did not use them.
Those mutineers who had remained in ships in the harbour trained
their guns on the city and threatened to bombard it, and a broadcast
appeal by the admiral commanding was received with derision.

Congress leaders, including Patel who was in Bombay, urged the
mutineers to surrender, which they did. But four days of civil riots
and disorder followed in the city. The Navy also mutinied at Calcutta
and Madras and, rather more seriously, at Karachi, where the military
commander turned artillery on the mutineers causing considerable
casualties and loss of life. It was obvious that there had been organiza-
tion behind the mutinies and some of it had undoubtedly originated
with left-wing elements in Congress. Though Congress condemned
the mutinies, for political reasons the mutineers were not punished with
the severity they deserved. Nehru and others were slowly beginning to
realize that it was their navy that was rebelling against authority,
that lawlessness, once encouraged, was very difficult to stop. Freedom
was at hand, and it needed only to be negotiated, not bought with
blood. But, in actual fact, neither Congress nor the Muslim League was
in a position to control events. There were others — political extremists,
religious fanatics, gangsters with friends in high places — whose fingers
were on the trigger. Any angry speech by a League or Congress leader
provided the excuse. The politicians might be genuinely horrified by
the consequences, but they seemed to think that it was not their respon-
sibility. While they used the threat of violence as a political weapon,
there were others ready to give it reality. The politicians, with their
inflammatory speeches, had created a climate of horrified expectancy.
All over India, ordinary people were looking anxiously over their
shoulders, eyeing neighbours of a different religious persuasion and

1 14 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

wondering — sometimes not for long — whether they should strike
first.

The conspirators — Hindu reactionaries of the Mahasabha, Sikhs
sharpening their swords and their memories, princes addicted to
bizarre ‘eccentricities’, left-wing agitators fresh from Moscow, and
criminals with an eye to the main chance — were all waiting for some
really big opportunity. Theirs was not a single conspiracy but a large
number of separate, sometimes even personal, plans to create and take
advantage of anarchy. The opportunity was soon to come.

In the meanwhile, the British, whose Intelligence had not yet alto-
gether collapsed, were to some extent aware of what was going on.
But they were hamstrung by the unprecedented political situation. It
had finally been brought home to the administration that its days were
numbered. Whatever it decided to do, however wise and good its
actions, it was likely to be misinterpreted. And anyway, were the
police and the army ‘safe’? Could even British troops be trusted?

In the narrow world of the newspaper headline, everythmg seems
clearcut. Great names are bandied about as if their bearers are the sole
arbiters of events. But great happenings are always made up of more
than the speeches and actions of the personalities who stalk the public
stage. Behind the front men are the real deciders, who can influence
events even by doing nothing. The British administration in India was
winding down in the uncertainty of its members’ future. Accustomed
to act without fearing much more than departmental disapproval,
officials were now not sure who they were ultimately responsible to.
Men on the spot, who in the past would have assumed immediate
responsibility and argued afterwards, were now more inclined to wait
and consult higher authority, to debate what they should do before
doing it. It was a perfectly understandable attitude for them to take.
But for the men of violence, the signs were there to see. The British
were weak, and they were unlikely to move decisively against
disorder.

Back in the other world, in the rarefied field of the politicians, events
were on the move. Out of them was soon to emerge the excuse the
violent men were waiting for. Elections for the constituent assembly
took place and Congress and the Muslim League surpassed even their
triumphal showing at the last election. The League won 73 seats, all but
five of those which had been reserved for Muslims, and Congress won

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115

205. Ironically enough, the results gave satisfaction to both parties,
although they did not mean that either side was prepared to breathe
life into the assembly itself. Nehru had already stated, ‘We [Congress]
will remain in that assembly so long as we think it is good for India. . . .
We are not bound by a single thing.' He had gone on to outline ideas for
a much more powerful Centre than the one which had been suggested
by the Cabinet Mission, and he also added that it was his belief that
there would probably be no groupings of provinces at all. In effect,
he was rejecting the whole basis of the mission’s plan, so hopefully
devised to placate Jinnah and the League; lie seemed to think that there
was no inconsistency in Congress accepting the plan and then going
into the constituent assembly in order to change the only two provisions
that might make it work. Of course, Nehru was under pressure from
the representatives of provinces such as Assam, which had a Hindu
majority but which would probably be forced to join a Muslim-
majority group. He was also under pressure from the left wing of
Congress, which seemed to think that nothing had changed since 194.2
and that the real enemy was still the British. Nehru was simply re-
stating his belief that the British were about to leave and that Congress
would be able to push the Muslim League aside.

With Nehru’s words echoing in Muslim ears, Jinnah met the council
of the League. He had already demanded an assurance from the British
government that the constituent assembly would be forced to follow
the mission’s plans for it, and had received some mild assurances in the
House of Commons. Jinnah, however, was now ready for a showdown

no more talk of compromise, no more trust in the words of the
treacherous’ British. ‘I feel we have exhausted all reason,’ he said. ‘It is
no use looking to any other source for help or assistance. There is no
other tribunal to which we can go. The only tribunal is the Muslim
nation.’

The League withdrew its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission’s plan
for the constituent assembly. Jinnah spoke with feeling of his attempts
to reach a compromise; the British had deceived him; they had backed
down in face of Congress threats of another violent struggle ; Congress
was planning to dominate the assembly with its ‘brute majority .
Henceforth, Muslims must fight their own battles.

Arc wc alone,’ he declaimed, ‘to be guided by reason, justice, honesty and

1

Il6 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

fair play, when, on the other hand, there are perfidious dealings by Congress?
. . . Today Muslim India is stirred as never before, and has never felt so bitterly.
. . . Now there is no room left for compromise. Let us march on. . . . Never
have we in the whole history of the League done anything except by constitu-
tional methods. . . . But now we are forced into this position. This day we bid
goodbye to constitutional methods.’

Jinnah was followed by others who seemed anxious to outdo him in
the warlike nature of their speeches. The council of the League called
upon Muslims to renounce all British titles and honours, ‘in token of
their deep resentment of the attitude of the British’, and the working
committee passed a resolution calling for Direct Action, ‘to achieve
Pakistan . . . and get rid of the present slavery under the British and
the contemplated future of Centre Hindu domination’. 16 August was
to be Direct Action Day, though it was to be marked only by peaceful
meetings at which League leaders would explain why the Cabinet
Mission’s plan had finally been rejected. Spokesmen of the League
maintained that the call for Direct Action was no incitement to com-
munal violence. It was not a declaration of war, said Jinnah, ‘it is
nothing but a statement about the steps we propose to take for our own
self-preservation and self-defence’. Congress, he alleged, was about to
launch another civil disobedience campaign. The British were getting
ready to suppress revolutionary activity. ‘I also,’ he said, ‘am going to
make trouble’. The League’s bellicose attitude was a further proof that
it had never had any real intention of working the Cabinet Mission’s
plan.

Despite Jinnah’s disclaimers, the threat of violence at least impressed
Congress — though not into any real attempt at conciliation. The
Congress Working Committee tried to explain away the ambiguities
in its declared policy. On io August it issued a statement declaring that,
while Congress did not approve all the Cabinet Mission’s proposals,
it did accept the plan as a whole. Unfortunately, it could not leave well
alone and followed this statement with two paragraphs of explanation
which seemed , though the language was by no means clear, to bristle
with reservations. Six days later, after an appeal from Wavell, Nehru
went to Bombay to meet Jinnah.

In the meanwhile, negotiations had continued in an attempt to form
an interim government, but, in view of the League’s rejection of the
mission plan, Wavell had sent Jinnah a letter on 8 August in which he

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wrote, ‘I have now decided to invite the Congress to make proposals
for an Interim Government’. Four days after this, the viceroy an-
nounced that Congress had accepted the invitation and that Nehru was
to visit Delhi to discuss details with Wavell. This was followed by a
letter from Nehru to Jinnah asking for his co-operation in a ‘coalition
provisional government’. On the basis of this letter, Nehru and Jinnah
talked for over an hour. Nehru, still slightly suspicious of British inten-
tions and afraid that Jinnah’s intransigence might delay the indepen-
dence he had fought for all his life, exerted his very considerable charm.
But mutual prejudices went too deep, and each man saw only the
image of the other which he had created in his own mind. There was
between them no respect, let alone trust. Jinnah saw ‘an arrogant
Brahmin’, Nehru a fascist demagogue. As Nehru drove away from
Jinnah’s house, the black flags of the Muslim League seemed to flap in
his face — it was Direct Action Day. But this was Bombay, which had
only a small Muslim population, and all was quiet.

Away on the other side of India in Calcutta, however, Direct Action
had exploded into bloody madness. Bengal had a Muslim majority and
in Calcutta the provincial government was a Muslim League adminis-
tration headed by H. S. Suhrawardy, a pleasure-loving and corrupt
politician who would have done well in the southern states of America.
During the war he had been minister in charge of food at the time of
the great Bengal famine of 1943, and it was authoritatively rumoured
that he had made a handsome profit out of the sufferings of his fellow-
countrymen. He had a well organized private army of thugs and was
not reluctant to use strong-arm tactics against political and business
opponents. His popularity with ordinary people was considerable, for
he had a high-coloured flamboyance which appealed to their drab
minds. Though a member of the Muslim League Working Committee,
he was really the president and sole beneficiary of the Suhrawardy
party. His political ideas were the product of personal ambitions and
he had no liking for Jinnah — a feeling which was heartily recipro-
cated. It was believed at the time that Suhrawardy hoped to make
Bengal an independent state after the departure of the British, but it is
unlikely that this shrewd voluptuary actually thought he could get
away with it. However, colour was given to this belief by a statement
he made in Delhi on 10 August. In it he declared that if Congress went
ahead and formed an interim government at the Centre, he would set

THE EAST YEARS OP BRITISH INDIA

Il8

up his own interim government in Bengal. Nobody took much notice.
Congress, in fact, did not believe that he could carry out his threat.
Somewhat piqued, Suhrawardy decided that Direct Action Day might
well be the best time to display his strength in the city of Calcutta. His
bodyguard was in contact with the Muslim riffraff of the city — from
which they had been recruited — and it would be easy enough for them
to organize demonstrations of solidarity for their employer and, quite
incidentally, for Pakistan. Calcutta has the worst slums in the world;
crawling ant-heaps of terrifying poverty and disease. Out of them on
the morning of 16 August marched the mobs — and they were not
peaceful crowds off to a peaceful demonstration. Communal extremists
and professional gangsters moved among them, spreading rumours
that the Hindus were getting ready to kill all the Muslims in Bengal.
‘Arm yourselves,’ was the cry, ‘and kill them before they kill you.’ The
gangsters had it all worked out. In Calcutta, Suhrawardy had declared
a public holiday. Muslim shopkeepers were told to close their shops.
Only Hindus would open theirs, and thus announce that they were
Hindus. Then they could be killed and their shops could be looted. In
the beginning, this was left to the professionals, but soon die scrawny,
downtrodden slum-dwellers who followed behind began to take their
part. Hindu men, women and children were waylaid, tormented, and
then killed.

While all this was going on, Suhrawardy was addressing a mass meet-
ing. He was in a jubilant inood and apparendy did not notice the smoke
rising from the many fires which had now been kindled in the city.
Hindus and Sikhs — hardly needing encouragement from their own
extremists — were now out for revenge, and soon found the innocent
to wreak it on. There were no pitched battles, only sudden killing of
the unarmed. The police, mainly Muslims, did their best, but they were
naturally unwilling to attack their co-religionists. As soon as one
street was cleared and the police had moved on, the mob moved
up behind them. A crowd could disappear in a moment into the
rabbit-warren of streets, only to emerge yelling for blood somewhere
else.

The next day, as the author of this book entered Calcutta by the long
road from the airfield, fires glowed on either side and the bodies of
men, women and children, hideously mutilated, squelched under the
wheels of the bus. The hot air smelt of fire and blood, and the mad yell-

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mg of the mob echoed in the alleys. But the ordeal of Calcutta was by
no means over.

Sir Frederick Burrows, an ex-railwayman and trade union official
who had been appointed governor of Bengal by the Labour govern-
ment as some sort of irrelevant proof that the old order in India (as
elsewhere) was changing, proved unequal to the demands of the crisis.
To his anxious inquiries, Suhrawardy replied that the police had every-
thing under control. Burrows believed him. His British advisors
seemed paralysed. The army commander was away in Britain for a
conference, and his subordinates were not men of decision. Burrows
had toured the city on the first day, but the mobs had melted away in
front of his cavalacade and all he saw was empty streets. On the second
day, however, it became obvious even to Suhrawardy that the situation
was out of hand. The governor called in troops, and British and Gurkha
soldiers began to patrol the streets of what looked like a dead city. But
they could do no more than keep the gangs away from the main
thoroughfares. In the foetid alleys, the weak and the unprotected were
chopped to pieces or battered to death, and there was not very much
that could be done about it.

For four days this great city of over 2,500,000 inhabitants was a
stamping-ground for the underworld. Official figures gave 4,000 dead
and 10,000 injured — and that was probably on the conservative side.
Even then, the total in that terrible four days was greater than in all the
communal riots that had taken place throughout the whole history of
British rule. It seemed as if the civil war forecast by the politicians was at
hand, for the terror in Calcutta was a civilian terror created by ordinary
men and women incited to butchery and torture. No British were
assaulted; on the contrary, the few who were out in the streets received
only politeness from men whose fmgers were still wet with blood.

Political leaders were horrified, but not horrified enough to go to
Calcutta. Only the viceroy, still clinging to his belief in Britain’s
responsibility, went to the stricken city where he heard that all of the
picture was not dyed with blood. There had been attempts by Hindus
and Muslims working together to bring peace; decency and honest
human emotion had not been completely banished. Hindus had
sheltered Muslims and Muslims, Hindus, and many had died in an
attempt to protect those whom their leaders called enemies. But no
one except the viceroy really cared. The politicians condemned the

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riots and hastened to deny responsibility for them, and the Calcutta
riots at least gave Jinnah the satisfaction of overwhelming proof that
Hindus and Muslims could not live together. The moral of the great
Calcutta killings was that there must be Pakistan or civil war.

For the dead and the wounded, few had a moment to spare. Freedom
was at hand and even if the purchase price included the blood of the
innocent, what did it matter? Accusation, not action, was the order of
the day. Jinnah accused Congress of fomenting the riots. Congress,
with real justification, blamed the Muslim League government of
Bengal.

But Congress’s attention was really concentrated upon forming an
interim government. Wavell, back from Calcutta, still believed that
the only sure way to a stable India was for Hindus and Muslims to
forget their differences and work together in the interests of India.
While in Calcutta, he had had conversations with Kwaja Nazimuddin,
a Muslim League leader who was known to be close to Jinnah, and had
received a semi-assurance that, if Congress would accept the Cabinet
Mission’s plan in the way the mission itself interpreted it, the League
might be willing to enter an interim government. Wavell, his con-
science still raw from what he had seen in Calcutta, was only too willing
to believe that Nazimuddin was expressing on behalf of the League a
more reasonable and responsible attitude than it had hitherto taken.
Perhaps by appealing to Congress, he could persuade them to a similar
exercise of restraint and responsibility. Once again, Wavell deluded
himself into believing that the nationalist leaders were concerned with
moral issues and cared whether the people of India lived or died. They
were not. At that time, they were concerned only with jockeying for
power. Jinnah had begun to fear that Congress would form an interim
government without League participation, thus getting a grip on the
administrative machinery to the disadvantage of the League.

Wavell tried to persuade Nehru and Gandhi — who was once again
being used by Congress as a figurehead — to agree to the Nazimuddin
proposal. They would not, though Gandhi had said after the Calcutta
rioting, ‘We are not yet in the midst of civil war. But we are nearing it.
At present we are playing at it.’ Gandhi, however, was no longer in
control of Congress policy, and Nehru was not prepared to co-operate.
WThy should he when control of an interim government, without
Muslim League members, was in prospect? Wavell could not under-

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stand how the apostle of non-violence and the Harrow-educated
socialist could be so indifferent to the sufferings of the people of India.
Wavell pointed out that if Congress alone formed a government the
Muslim League would retaliate with Direct Action. Did Nehru and
Gandhi view with equanimity the possibility of more Calcuttas? If
rioting were to spread, British troops would have to be used and they
would appear to be acting as instruments of a Congress government;
this could only lead to further violence, against the British as well as
against Congress. Gandhi’s unhelpful suggestion was that British troops
should be withdrawn — this, at a time when other Congress leaders
were condemning the British for not doing more to preserve law and
order !

Waved was emotionady unsuited to this sort of fencing. Arguments,
however wise, appeals to humanity, however justifiable, were totally
irrelevant. The viceroy and the political leaders were not even speaking
the same language. Congress stid had a lurking suspicion that, though
the Labour government might mean what it said, there were powerful
interests in Britain and India using the League’s demands as an excuse to
perpetuate British rule. There even seemed a possibility that the British
might arrest Congress leaders yet again. It was fairly obvious that
Congress did not have much faith in the Labour government s will or
in its power to control its representatives in India; the Labour govern-
ment, they thought, was more concerned with reforms at home.

Now Congress began an underground campaign against the viceroy.
It was perfectly justified in doing so, for Waved now appeared to be
trying to prevent Congress from joining the very government he had
specifically asked them to form. The British were famous — or in-
famous, according to the point of view — for their moral arguments.
Had they not always claimed to be trustees of the Indian people, and
had they not used that claim as an excuse to deny India self-govern-
ment? Waved’s argument that something must be done to prevent
further bloodshed sounded like just another of Britain s moral excuses.
The modem bystander — cspcciady the non-Indian able to judge by the
standards of his own experience — fuids it easy to condemn Nehru and
Congress for pettiness, indifference, and general bloody-mindedness.
But these men had a heavy burden of experience, of oppression,
imprisonment, and broken promises. Suspicion, based upon the
evidence of the past, distorted their view of the present. ‘Perhaps’

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THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

began to seem the most heavily-charged word in the language. The
Labour party had supported India’s claim for freedom, but perhaps it
had done so only as part of the battle against its own political enemies.
Was there really any reason to believe that, when in power, one
Englishman was any different from another? The Labour government
seemed genuinely about to grant India her freedom, but perhaps it was
playing a double game. Perhaps, too, it might fall a victim to its own
inexperience. Although it had appointed an ex-railwayman as governor
of Bengal, it seemed otherwise to rely on the old rulers of India who
were tainted with the guilt of the past.

The wisest move the new Labour government could have made
after the war ended in 1945 would have been to replace Wavell, and
the possibility had in fact been discussed. But who could they appoint
instead? There were many in the Labour party who would have liked
the appointment, who were as anxious as men of other political per-
suasions for the honours and awards of high office. The only really
qualified candidates, however, were those most needed in the Labour
cabinet at Westminster, a cabinet which was not conspicuous for its
brilliance. But the primary reason for not appointing a new viceroy
was India’s very low priority in Labour thinking; the opportunity
had come for great changes in Britain, and it was this that filled the
minds of Labour leaders. Attlee, however, was soon made aware of
how deeply Congress mistrusted Wavell.

The Labour party as a whole was pro Nchru-the-Fabian-socialist,
and anti Jinnah and the religious fanaticism they thought was his only
raison d'etre. Attlee too despised Jinnah and underestimated his strength,
believing that he would be forced to join an interim govermnent in
the end if only to protect his own interests. Attlee — who had come to
the conclusion that the best way to bring this about was to go ahead
and form a government without Jinnah — was therefore already con-
ditioned to give a sympathetic hearing to Congress complaints about
Wavell when they finally reached him. Gandhi sent a cable to Attlee
suggesting that Wavell had been ‘unnerved owing to the Bengal
tragedy’; in public, he accused Wavell (though he later withdrew
the accusation) of being pro Muslim. In fact, if there was one thing the
British could not afford to be at this time, it was pro anybody, for
the chances were that everybody would then become anti British. Attlee
reasserted the authority of the British government, as was his right, by

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overruling the viceroy’s attempts to bring about co-opcration between
Congress and the Muslim League. Some commentators have stig-
matized this as an act of treachery, but it must be remembered that the
viceroy — however great and good a man — was no more than a servant
of the British parliament, and his sole function was to carry out the
wishes of the government of the day.

Towards the end of August 1946, Attlee, in a personal telegram to
Wavell, instructed him to go ahead and form an interim government
without the Muslim League. Attlee’s fear — and it was a well-founded
one — was that, if procrastination continued, Congress would turn
against the British government and once again break out in rebellion.
Nehru admitted later that he would not have been prepared to go to
jail again, but this ‘revelation’ is irrelevant, for even if Nehru had set
his face against rebellion, he and the other leaders would probably have
been swept aside by the right-wing Hindu elements who were still
spoiling for a fight. The intellectuals of the Congress Socialist party
were also belligerent, though it is doubtful if they really counted for
much. However, the Labour government was not prepared to contem-
plate re-conquering India, especially with conscript soldiers. There
was just a chance that the League might be frightened into joining an
interim government. It was a long shot, but within a few weeks it
seemed to have worked.

On 2 September, the interim government took office. Nehru,
though he was called a vice-president (the viceroy was president),
thought of himself as acting prime minister. He also held the portfolios
of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations. The rest of the
portfolios were held by four Hindu members of Congress, including
Patel and llajagopalachari, one Congress member of the scheduled
castes, three non-Lcaguc Muslims — one of whom was a member of
Congress — one Indian Christian and a Parsec. The commander-in-
chief, Sir Claude Auchinlcck, although he resigned his scat as ‘War
Member’ to a Sikh, Baldcv Singh, remained head of the army.

The Muslim League ordered every Muslim in India, from Jinnah
himself ‘to the smallest and most frightened little man in his hut, to fly
a black flag from his house-top in silent contempt for the Hindu
government’! But black flags could bring little comfort to Jinnah.
The very thing he had been fighting tooth and nail to prevent, with
every trick that his subtle mind could think of, had happened. There

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THE LAST YEARS OF BftlTISH INDIA

really was a Congress-dominated government at the Centre. And it
might easily decide to move against the League and arrest its leaders.
The League had its black flags and a few rifles — Congress now seemed
to have both the Indian Army and part of the British army to carry out
its policy.

This was, of course, an over-simplification, for the British could not
have allowed the interim government to act against the League. Never-
theless, they had promised that an interim government would be able
to act as if it were ‘responsible’, so how could they deny it the right to
act against the League? If the viceroy were to interpose his veto, then
the government’s ‘responsibility’ would be diminished and Congress
might easily withdraw. Fortunately, Jinnah came to Britain’s assistance
and they did not have to face what might have been a tragic dilemma.
The Muslim League decided to join the interim government.

Throughout September and into the first week of October, consul-
tations between the viceroy and Jinnah, and between Jinnah and Nehru,
continued. The League tried to make conditions for entering the gov-
ernment but no agreement was reached. Congress would not give up

its right to nominate a Muslim to one of its seats. At last, on 13 October,
Jinnah replied to a letter from Wavell: ‘It will be fatal to leave the
entire administration of the Central Government in the hands of
Congress,’ he said, therefore ‘we have decided to nominate five mem-
bers of the interim government on behalf of the Muslim League.’ The
League nominees included only one of the party’s leading figures,
Liaquat Ah Khan, but, to everyone’s surprise, one of the others was not
a Muslim at all but a member of the Scheduled Castes Federation ! The
federation’s leader, Dt Ambcdkar, had vigorously denied Congress s
right to speak for the Untouchables, so he accepted Jinnah’s astute
offer to give one of the League’s scats to a member of the federation.
But Jinnah’s offer did not presage an extension of the Muslim League s
activities into championing the cause of the Hindu minorities. It was
simply a retaliation for Congress’s choice of a Muslim for one of its
own scats. Liaquat Ali made it quite clear that the League did not agree
with Nehru’s view that the interim government ‘would function as a
corporate whole, as a cabinet’. ‘We have come into the government,
Liaquat said, ‘with the intention of working in harmony with our
colleagues — but you cannot clap with one hand.’

The conversations that led to the League’s joining the government

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125

took place against a background of continuing communal violence
which may well have contributed to the League decision, for it seemed
that some sort of civil war was actually in progress and it was a civil
war that the League could not control. Calcutta had remained uneasy
after the great killing and there had been numerous outbreaks of
violence in the city. In Dacca, a city in east Bengal infamous for its
communal troubles, there had been numerous clashes between Hindu
and Muslim. From about 10 October, there had been reports that, in
the districts of Noakhali and Tippera, also in east Bengal, the Muslim
majority was carrying out an organized war upon Hindus. Refugees
escaping from these two districts brought with them lurid talcs of
murder, rape and arson. Hindu women, they said, were being kid-
napped and forcibly married; conversions under the threat of death
were taking place. Panic spread to the surrounding districts and many
Hindus in places far away from the trouble spots fled from their homes
in fear that their Muslim neighbours were about to attack them. Hindu
newspapers were full of atrocity stories and the Muslim press retali-
ated with accusations that they were exaggerating and creating panic
with the sole intention of discrediting the Muslim League government
of Bengal.

The British this time acted swiftly, though Noakhali and Tippera
were remote and communications were difficult. Troops and armed
police quickly moved in. The RAF dropped leaflets, food and medical
supplies, and refugee camps were established. By the end of the month
the troubles had died down. The Bengal government’s opinion was
that there was no general rising of Muslims, but that, in the words of
the governor, ‘the disturbances have been caused by a body of hooli-
gans who have exploited the existing communal feeling, and who, as
they range the countryside arc temporarily joined in each locality by
belligerent Muslim toughs*. It was Calcutta all over again — the
gangsters were the only true beneficiaries of Hindu-Muslim conflict.

The ‘vernacular’ politicians, who formed the vast majority of second-
level leadership in both Congress and the League, joined with the
leaders of the strictly communal parties in exploiting the troubles.
Inflammatory speeches filled the air and native-language newspapers
consisted of little but incitements to further violence. The leading
figures of the two main parties publicly condenuicd the rioting and
issued appeals for peace and, above all, avoidance of reprisals. They did

126 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

very little, however, to discipline their lunatic fringes, nor did they
suggest that censorship should be imposed on the press. Gandhi went
to Calcutta and then to east Bengal on a personal mission of peace. At
the beginning of November, Nehru, Patel, Liaquat Ali, and another
League member of the interim government, Sardar Nishtar, visited
Calcutta in a further attempt to calm the people. Shortly after their
arrival, they were greeted with the news that massacres were taking
place in the southern districts of Bihar. This time, it was Hindus,
inflamed by tales from east Bengal, who were exacting terrible reprisals
on a Muslim minority. Nehru and Nishtar hurried to the scene and
made speeches vigorously condemning both their communities. Again
the army had been called in, but by the time order was restored some

7.000 men, women and children had been murdered, usually under the
most bestial circumstances. Congress, playing down Hindu responsi-
bility, put the actual deaths at 2,000, the League at 30,000 killed and

150.000 refugees.

Bihar was not to be the last example of communal terror. It spread
westwards in an obscene tide to the United Provinces. At Garh-
muktesar, the site of an annual Hindu fair, a quarrel over admission to
a sideshow was followed by a massacre of Muslims. In a nearby village
where there was a majority of Muslim inhabitants, they retaliated by
killing every Hindu. Counter-reprisals spread, resulting in several
hundred deaths. Farther west, in the great city of Bombay, the back
streets were seething with riot. Between 2 September, when the interim
government had taken office, and 18 November, 622 people were
killed.

To the soldiers — both British and Indian — fell the thankless and
almost impossible task of keeping the public peace. Responsibility for
law and order lay with the provincial governments, not with the
Centre, and consequently, the army was often called in too late. If a
provincial administration was Hindu its first reaction was to minimize
the extent of Hindu reprisals; a Muslim administration was anxious to
do the same when the offenders were Muslims. But the army, once
called in, acted impartially against the rioters whatever their religion.
One thing the bloodshed proved was that British fears that the army
might be demoralized by having to fight its own countrymen and
co-religionists were unfounded — at least so far. This must have given
some satisfaction to the nationalist leaders. If it came to the worst, they

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might even unite for self-protection behind the guns of the Indian
Army.

With their ultimate security reasonably assured, the nationalist
leaders could get back to their manoeuvres in what was undoubtedly
going to be a war of succession. But as they gathered together in the
interim government, the menacing shadows gathered too. Time was
running out and the British at least recognized that this was so, and
that they must negotiate not only with men but with the knowledge of
what lurked in the background. ‘Fate,’ in the words of Andre Malraux
in one of his early essays, stood ‘behind each of these beings like death
in a ward of incurables.’

4 The Key to Indian Freedom

In a broadcast from Delhi on 25 October, Wavell declared that, with
the formation of a coalition government, ‘India has taken another great
stride forward on the road to freedom’, and that this was also the first
step towards the preparation of a new constitution ‘which will enable
the British government to complete the transfer of power to India’. It
is not unreasonable to suppose that the viceroy’s statement was meant
only to offer hopeful encouragement and reassurance, but it seems
likely that Wavell actually thought tliat, if Congress and the League
were brought together in the exercise of power, they would recognize
the advantages of continued co-operation. Again, with impeccable
logic, Wavell applied reason to an essentially unreasonable situation.
The proof of this was soon to be presented to him. The greatest
obstacle to co-operation, apart, that is, from Jinn all’s fixed intention
to be obstructive, was the divergence between Congress’ view of the
interim government’s functions and the view of the League. Congress
regarded the government as a dominion government in all but name,
and, during the weeks in which it had functioned without League
participation, it had begun to act as if it was. I11 conjunction with the
minority members, the Congress bloc built up a system of joint
responsibility as if they were a fully independent cabinet in a liberal
democracy. This was done partly to disarm the viceroy who, in any
case of disagreement, could exercise his veto, and partly to reassure
left-wing critics of the Congress leadership that the ministers were not

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128

tools of the British. This pretence of being a responsible cabinet —
responsible to whom, is perhaps the obvious question — was certainly
contrary to the mission’s intention. The viceroy, however, seemed pre-
pared to go along with the pretence, probably in the hope that it would
encourage the Muslim League to change its mind and join the govern-
ment.

The effect on the League, however, was rather different. Ironically
enough, as soon as it did join the government it chose to make a stand
on stria legality. As far as the League was concerned, its leaders said,
this government was no more than the old Viceroy’s Executive
Council, and to call it a ‘cabinet’ was not only misleading but illegal.
The vice-president — in this case, Nehru — had no justification for
assuming himself to be the equivalent of a prime minister. Constitu-
tionally, he had no specific functions except to preside at meetings from
which the viceroy was absent. This interpretation — and it was the
correct one — gave the League the excuse it required. It had decided to
enter the government only to act as a check upon Congress and it was
able to do so by pointing out that Congress was actually acting uncon-
stitutionally. For tliis, Wavell was partly to blame. In his correspon-
dence with Jinnah he had continually used the word ‘cabinet’, and he
had gone out of his way to encourage Congress’s belief that the interim
government was to operate on die ‘cabinet’ principle. It now seemed
that the League had not only self-interest but legality on its side, and,
in order to avoid being outvoted by the Congress majority in the
council, it could legitimately request the viceroy to use his veto.

This naturally angered Congress, and encouraged their growing
suspicion that the British government — or at least the viceroy — hoped
to perpetuate control by using the League to incapacitate the council
so that it would become necessary for the viceroy to use his special
powers. All along. Congress had maintained that there was an alliance
between the League and the British, and there is no doubt that Jinnah
was in fact receiving advice on tactics from pro-League British officials.
There is certainly no evidence, however, for the suggestion that Wavell
was engaged in some sinister plot of his own devising. His only fault —
and it was a highly dangerous one — was that he was emotionally
incapable of judging the complexity of the situation, and his honest
blundering merely played into the hands of Jinnah and his friends.

Similar trouble also arose over the forthcoming meeting of the

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constituent assembly which, after postponement, was now planned for
9 December. Owing to the rather hasty way in which the Muslim
League had entered the interim government, there had been no dis-
cussions over the League’s decision to boycott the constituent assembly,
and the day after the viceroy announced that the assembly would meet
on 9 December, Jinnah issued a statement declaring that in his opinion
this was ‘one more blunder of a very grave and serious character and
that the viceroy was ‘playing into the hands of Congress’. ‘I want to
make it clear,’ he went on, ‘that no representative of the Muslim League
should attend the constituent assembly summoned to meet on the
9th of December 1946.’ Waved maintained that Jinnah had agreed
that the League’s entry into the interim government had been con-
ditional on its willingness to take part in the constituent assembly, but
Jinnah denied that he had given ‘anything by way of assurances or
otherwise’. Furthermore, after the ‘mass-organized and planned ruth-
less massacres of Muslims in various parts of Bihar , he argued that there
should be no question of holding the constituent assembly at all in such
a ‘highly-charged and explosive atmosphere’.

It was fairly obvious that the tccluiiquc which had been used to per-
suade the League into joining the interim government would not
succeed in getting it into the constituent assembly. The assembly meet-
ing could not be postponed, however, because that would only add
fuel to the Congress accusation that the British were using the League
to hold up constitutional advance. Wavcll was now so suspect by
Congress that it became necessary for the next move to come from the
British government itself, and the tactics would have to be spectacular,
if they were going to work at all. The viceroy suggested to Attlee that
he invite both Congress and League leaders to London and that Wavcll
himself should go with them. When the invitations were issued, Nehru
replied that he did not feel that he and his colleagues should go to
London, but that ‘We would be agreeable to consultations with the
representatives of the British government in India’. Congress in fact
feared that there was to be an attempt to postpone the constituent
assembly, for it was now 27 November and any discussions in London
might easily be protracted to a date later than that fixed for the first
meeting of the assembly. Pcthick-Lawrcnce, informed of these
doubts, told Nehru that the discussions had been suggested so as to
ensure that the assembly did open on the date set, and that the British

130 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

government had no intention of modifying the Cabinet Mission’s plan.
After some further haggling, Nehru agreed to go ‘But we shall have to
return by 9 December in time for the constituent assembly’. The British
government agreed to this condition.

Jinnah, however, had been following this exchange of pleasantries
with growing anger and trepidation. He was not prepared to go to
London just for this. ‘Unless,’ he cabled Attlee, ‘it is open for us to
discuss the whole situation [i.e. the basis of the mission plan] it will be
no use my going to London.’ He received an ingenuous reply from
Attlee, saying that his refusal to come ‘must be based upon a misunder-
standing of my telegrams to Nehru. There is nothing in it to prejudice
full consideration of all points of view’. Jinnah had, of course, no inten-
tion of allowing Nehru to go to London without him, and he now
decided he had played hard-to-get long enough. He telegraphed
Attlee ‘After your clarification and assurances, I have decided to leave
for London tomorrow’ ! On 1 December, Wavell, Nehru, Jinnah,
Liaquat Ah and Baldev Singh left for London by air.

The British government was not particularly hopeful about the
outcome of the talks. All it really hoped to achieve was to persuade
Jinnah into dropping the League’s boycott of the constituent assembly.
The discussions lasted only four days and, on 6 December, the British
government issued a statement which made it quite clear that no settle-
ment had been arrived at. It explained the absence of results by claiming
that it had not expected any, ‘since the Indian representatives must con-
sult their colleagues before any final decision is reached.’ The discussions
had centred mainly on the interpretation of the Cabinet Mission’s plan,
and, in particular, the clause concerning grouping. The mission, though
characteristically it had not actually said so, had intended that the con-
stituent assembly would decide on groupings by a simple majority
decision of the assembly, but that any province which might find itself
forced by the majority vote into a group to which it did not wish to
belong would be safeguarded by being allowed, after the first general
election held under the new constitution, to withdraw from the group
on the basis of a simple vote in the province’s own legislature. This
interpretation had not been acceptable to Congress, which wanted each
province to decide independently whether to join a group. But Con-
gress modified its view and said it would be prepared to abide by an
Indian Federal Court ruling on the interpretation of the grouping

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clause. The British government, however, made it clear that as far as
it was concerned, the British government’s interpretation was the
official interpretation, that the League had in fact been right all along,
and that this interpretation must be accepted ‘by all parties in the con-
stituent assembly’. The government urged Congress to acknowledge
this ruling in order to open the way for the League’s reconsideration of
its boycott. If it would not, then the matter should be referred to the
Federal Court as soon as possible.

The League was naturally jubilant over the vindication of its views,
but it was quick to condemn as a sop to Congress any suggestion of
reference to the Federal Court. However, the League’s main satisfaction
was to be derived from the last paragraph in the British government’s
statement.

‘There has never been any prospect of success for the constituent assembly,
except upon the basis of an agreed procedure. Should a constitution conic to be
framed by a constituent assembly in which a large section of the Indian popula-
tion had not been represented, His Majesty’s Government could not of course
contemplate — as the Congress have stated that they would not contemplate —
forcing such a Constitution upon any unwilling parts of the country .’

It is in the last sentence that the significance lies, for it seemed to imply
that the British government now considered it possible that they might
have to implement the Pakistan solution in one form or another. The
statement did not suggest that a constitution arrived at without League
participation would be void; it said that it would not be forced upon
unwilling parts of the country’ by the British, nor would the British
allow it to be imposed by Congress. This implication was bluntly put into
words by Sir Stafford Cripps in the House of Commons, when he said
If the Muslim League cannot be persuaded to come into the constituent
assembly then the parts of the country where they arc in a majority
cannot be held to be bound by the results.’ The statement, however,
also implied that any ‘unwilling’ parts of such provinces as were claimed
for Pakistan would not be forced into accepting a Pakistan constitution
cither.

The League claimed that the statement meant that a second con-
stituent assembly — which they had been asking for all along — should
now be set up. Nevertheless, the League’s battle for Pakistan was by
no means won. It was now up to Jinnali to prove to Congress — and

K

132 THB LAST YEARS OP BRITISH INDIA

the British — that he and he alone was the key to Indian freedom, and
that without his agreement nothing could be done.

The British government, though it had implied the possibility of some
sort of Pakistan solution, still hoped to be able to transfer power to a
united India. In this it was supported by the Conservative opposition,
although there too there was a division of opinion. The visit of the
Indians to London had had its fringe effects. Nehru had deeply im-
pressed the Labour leaders, while seeing Jinnah in the cold flesh had
helped to confirm their antagonism to all he stood for. On the other
hand, Jinnah had made some headway with Conservative politicians,
and he remained in Britain after the conference was over to spread
propaganda for Pakistan. In his conversations with members of the
party of big business, he had emphasized the probability of civil war
(and its effect on British business interests in India) if power was
transferred to a Congress-dominated government. Winston Churchill
still maintained in parliament that power should be handed over only
to a united India and that Britain should stay in India until such time
as agreement was reached between the two main parties, but he also
suggested that there were in fact three choices before the British govern-
ment. The first was ‘Quit India regardless of what may happen there ;
the second, ‘Partition India between the two different races*; and the
third, set up an ‘impartial administration responsible to Parliament . . .
to maintain the fundamental guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness*. The ‘fundamental guarantees’ were presumably to be
maintained by British bayonets.

Other Conservatives, however, after their talks with Jinnah, were
not as sure as their leader that the third choice was the best. Sir John
Anderson, in a speech in parliament on 13 December, put forward, as
a ‘broad truth to which I would subscribe’, the proposition that ‘one
British community democratically organized and ruled could not in
fact indefinitely hold in subjection another Indian community ripe for
self-government’. This attitude reflected a growing opinion among
some influential members of the Conservative party, and it finally
led to grudging but genuine support for the Labour governments

policies.

In the meantime, the constituent assembly had met in Delhi, as
scheduled, on 9 December. Without the Muslim League it certainly
had all the appearances of a Hindu and Congress-dominated body.

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133

But it was not entirely an assemblage of party stalwarts, for Congress
had nominated a number of men from outside its ranks who were dis-
tinguished in the law, scholarship and experience of public affairs. One
Congress leader was conspicuous by his absence. Gandhi — the ‘archi-
tect of this assembly’, as Nehru put it — was still tramping through
Bengal on his outstandingly successful mission of peace and reconcili-
ation. Some members of the assembly, in particular the Liberal party
leader and a representative of the Anglo-Indians, warned the assembly
not to hurry decisions that might be resented by ‘absent friends who
might later decide to join the assembly’, and the Indian princes, too —
who had not as yet decided how to nominate their representatives, but
who were beginning to realize that their own future position was in
danger — publicly regretted the ‘raising of any fundamental issues’ in
their absence. But the Congress majority was anxious to get on.

Neither of the major parties had as yet officially announced its views
on the British government’s statement of 6 December, but Jinnah
returned to India with Liaquat Ali on 21 December and, at a press
conference held at Karachi, declared that unless Congress accepted the
statement the League saw no reason to modify its attitude to the con-
stituent assembly. The next day, the Congress Working Committee
itself issued a lengthy statement, the main gist of which was a tedious
recapitulation of its old point of view. But the working committee
refused to make the decision and passed the buck to the All-India
Congress Committee which was due to meet early in January. The
reason for this attitude was the only partly concealed divisions within
Congress itself. Powerful elements, which had always considered
Nehru a rather weak vessel, were now convinced that he was prepared
to sacrifice Congress’s dominating position in the assembly by giving
the assurances demanded by the League. They thought — not wholly
without reason — that the Congress leaders were more interested in
personal power than in an undivided India. Partisans of such provinces
as Assam, who thought that it would be forced under the mission
plan to join a Muslim-majority group, were lobbying for some bold
action by the Congress leaders, and even Gandhi now seemed to be
working against Nehru, throwing his very considerable influence on to
the side of those who thought too many concessions had been made
already. Gandhi even advised the representatives of Assam and of the
Sikhs to refuse to co-operate in the mission plan.

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134

The British government was also exerting pressure. In its statement
of 6 December, it had given the impression that it would permit prob-
lems of interpretation to be settled by the Federal Court. Now, during
debates in the British parliament, government spokesmen asserted that
the government would not be prepared to change its interpretation
even if the matter was taken to the Federal Court. In consequence, at
the January meeting of the All-India Congress Committee, Nehru
pointed out that to refer problems of interpretation to the Federal
Court for a decision had ‘become purposeless and undesirable’. After
considerable argument, mainly from the representatives of Assam and
from the Congress socialists, a resolution was carried which, with
some rather vague reservations designed to placate the minorities,
finally accepted the British government’s interpretation.

When the constituent assembly met for its second session on 20
January 1947, the League had still not reacted officially to this Congress
resolution, and it was not until eleven days later that the League Work-
ing Committee met in Karachi. It issued a 3,000-word analysis of the
constitutional problem, the gravamen of which was that the constitu-
ent assembly was illegal and should be dissolved, and that Congress’s
tardy acceptance of the British government’s interpretation was
merely a trick.

The constituent assembly went on with its business, dividing itself
into committees and declaring that a chair would always be kept warm
for representatives of the League. But the League had no intention of
joining. It had now seen a weakening in the British government’s
determination to hand over to a united India and Jinnah hoped to
capitalize on it. The League, if it had wanted to make the constituent
assembly work, could have entered it and waited to sec whether or not
Congress had been genuine in its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission
plan. But this was too big a risk for Jinnah to take. He could, too, have
shown some public understanding of the fears that plagued Assam and
the Sikhs of the Punjab, by giving them some assurance of fair treat-
ment, but in all die words of the League’s statement there was no
glimmer of any such assurance.

Congress now demanded that the League should resign from the
interim government and, on 15 February, Patel asked that the British
government should force the League either to join the assembly or
leave the ‘cabinet’. The League claimed it had as much right to remain

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135

in the ‘cabinet’ as Congress had. Congress retaliated by itself threaten-
ing to resign if the British government did not act. The ball was now
back in Attlee’s court.

During all this controversy, communal violence had continued and
there had been outbreaks of rioting in Lahore and Amritsar in the
Punjab.

The British government had received from Wavell, when he was in
London, a plan for the organized withdrawal of British civilians and
troops from India to be used if the government should decide to quit
without any further attempt to reconcile the two parties. This plan did
not have the approval of General Auchinleck nor of some of the most
experienced of Indian administrators. Wavcll’s idea was to arrange a
phased withdrawal which would end with everyone being evacuated
by sea from Karachi and Bombay. It was in fact highly desirable that a
plan should be agreed for the protection in emergency of British
nationals. Similar plans (without the final evacuation) had been in
existence since the Mutiny of 1857, when the British had been caught
off-balance by a civil and military uprising. Wavell, however, seemed
to think that a phased withdrawal would fire Indians with the respon-
sibility of making peace amongst themselves and carrying on the
administration. Wavcll’s plan was intelligent, as an emergency plan.
As anything else, it was dangerous rubbish. In the present state of the
country, the British could not have withdrawn peacefully. If British
troops could not keep the peace while they were deployed around the
country, it was highly unlikely that they could keep it as they with-
drew. It was only British troops and British-led Indian troops that
were able to keep such peace as there was; withdraw them, and the
gangsters and communal terrorists would have taken over the country.
No British government could have sanctioned such a plan except in
the direst circumstances.

There was no doubt, however, that if something was not done
quickly such circumstances might yet arise. The British administration
in India was even thinner on the ground than it had been in 1945.
There had been no civil service recruitment during the war, and a
scheme launched soon after it ended had been abandoned in the face of
Indian opposition to any further recruitment of Europeans. Britain’s
control of the Indian Army was weakening rapidly as Indianization of
the officer corps increased, and British Army troops in India were

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

136

decreasing at a considerable rate as demobilization proceeded. Very
soon there would be practically no one to withdraw. The only alterna-
tive to departure open to the British government would be, in the case
of the civil service and the Indian Army, to re-open recruitment to
Europeans, which would be unacceptable to Indians and not particu-
larly appealing to British subjects looking for a secure career. As far as
the British Army was concerned, the Labour government could cer-
tainly not extend the service of wartime conscripts. If it did, it would
be faced with mutinous behaviour from the civilian-soldiers and heavy
pressure from their parents at home, most of whom had voted the
Labour government into office.

The only sensible solution was to do something which should have
been done long before — fix a definite date for the British withdrawal
from India and invite Indian leaders to work out some agreement for
the transfer of power. Wavell had in fact asked many times for such a
declaration and had envisaged 31 March 1948 as the date of the final
stage in his plan for phased withdrawal.

The Wavell plan did at least force the Labour government to face
the facts of a rapidly deteriorating situation. No longer could Attlee
hide behind the Micawberish formula of hoping that something would
turn up and solve the problem for him. On 20 February 1947, Attlee
announced in the House of Commons that, despite lack of agreement
on the Cabinet Mission’s plan, he wished to make it clear that it was the
government’s ‘definite intention to take the necessary steps to effect
the transfer of power into responsible Indian hands by a date not later
than June 1948’.

5 Wars of Succession

‘I had come to the conclusion,’ Attlee wrote later in his memoirs, ‘that
it was useless to try and get agreement by discussion between the
leaders of the rival communities. Unless these men were faced with the
urgency of a time limit, there would always be procrastination/ Here
Atdcc gives the impression that he, like Wavell, still clung to hopes of
an agreement even if it was only brought about by shock tactics. But
at the time, he killed even the faintest possibility of agreement — though
while Jinnah remained alive, the possibility was in any case so faint as

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137

to be non-existent — by providing in the House of Commons a rider
to his statement of 20 February.

‘His Majesty’s Government/ he said, ‘will have to consider to whom the powers
of the Central Government of British India should be handed over, on the due
date, whether as a whole to some form of Central Government for British India or in
some areas to the existing Provincial Governments, or in such other way as may
seem most reasonable and in the best interests of the Indian people.’

At the same time, the prime minister also announced that Lord
Wavcll’s ‘wartime appointment’ as viceroy would be ended and that
he would be succeeded by Admiral Viscount Mountbattcn of Burma.

The prime minister’s statement was received with all the predictable
reactions. In India, Nehru welcomed the declaration as bringing ‘reality
and a certain dynamic quality to the present situation’. . . . Congress
had been urging for years that die British withdrawal from India
should not be conditional upon agreement between Congress and the
League. . . . The British government had now accepted this. But all
Congress members did not take quite as sanguine a view as Nehru.
Many saw Attlee’s statement in the House of Commons as an open
invitation for the League to continue to boycott the constituent assem-
bly— to indulge, in fact, in a war for the succession. The Congress
Working Committee issued an invitation to the League to join in
discussions on the new situation. It also asked the British to give the
interim government the immediate status of a real cabinet, with full
executive control of the Services and of the administration.

The League, though welcoming Attlee’s statement, criticized the
vagueness of the passage dealing with the manner of die transfer of
power. Nevertheless, its leaders felt that the principle of Pakistan had
now, however vaguely, been accepted by the British government. The
League therefore must intensify its efforts to ensure that the British
handed over power not to a united but to a divided India.

In Britain, the Conservative opposition, which generally speaking
had supported the Labour government’s policy in broad principle,
now openly attacked the 20 February statement as far too radical. The
majority of Conservative members recognized the necessity of grant-
ing a form of self-government to India; after all, this was only an exten-
sion of a Tory policy consistently pursued over the previous twenty
years. They had also to some extent unwillingly recognized that

U8 the LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

Britain’s role in the world had been diminished by the late war. At the
same time, the Conservative party had still not recovered from the
tremendous shock of its defeat in 194.5, which even Churchill’s
wartime popularity had been unable to avert. The blindest of Tory re-
actionaries could recognize the growing self-assurance of the ‘working-
classes’, and their organic unwillingness to indulge in sacrifices for an
empire which had in any case always been the preserve of the upper
classes.

In the House of Commons debate on the prime minister’s statement,
it was significant that Tory members with some recent experience of
India spoke in support of the government, and in the House of Lords,
Lord Halifax — who as Lord Irwin had been viceroy at the time of the
Round Table conferences — declared that he was not prepared to oppose
the government’s policy because he could not honestly recommend a
better solution. The main criticism from other speakers was concerned
with the shortness of the time allowed for framing a constitution either
for a united India or a divided one. Churchill, Sir John Anderson, and
R. A. Butler — the principal Conservative spokesmen in the Commons
debate — pointed out that the prime minister’s statement did not
envisage protection of the minorities or of the rights of the princes, and
was in essence a complete departure from the original Cabinet Mission
offer. Anderson called it ‘an unjustified gamble’, and Churchill, with
more rhetoric than foresight, declared that ‘in handing over the
Government of India to these so-called political elements we are
handing over to men of straw, of whom, in a few years, no trace will
remain’. He claimed that the nationalist leaders did not represent the
mass of the Indian people, and although this argument was not un-
founded it was hardly helpful. Who else could the British negotiate
with? Churchill was so infuriated by Labour’s ‘treason’ that this
patriot of patriots even went so far as to suggest that the government
should resort to the aid and advice of the United Nations. Butler was
rather more in touch with reality, and he made it clear that he believed
there would be more than one heir to the estate when the time came for
Britain to hand over power. When it came to the vote, however, the
opposition was helpless. A Conservative motion condemning the
government’s policy was defeated by 337 votes to 185.

While words rattled around the Houses of Parliament at West-
minster, blood was flowing in India. The politicians, and their un-

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139

acknowledged allies in the streets and byways, were already fighting
for the succession, each in his different way. The Muslim League, with
only fifteen months to establish its claim to take delivery of Pakistan,
was hard at work. And there was a great deal for it to do. There was a
League provincial government in only two — Bengal and Sind — of
the six Pakistan provinces . Baluchistan had no elected government,
being administered by a British chief commissioner. In the North-
West Frontier Province (NWFP) and in Assam there were Congress
administrations, while the Punjab was governed by a coalition ministry
of the Unionist party (a party including Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs),
Congress, and the Sikhs’ own political party.

The main League target was the last of these provinces, the Punjab.
Not only was it the largest and most fertile and prosperous of the
north-western provinces of India, but it held a strategic position and if
the League could gain control of it, they would cut the NWFP off
completely from the rest of Congress India, hi the Punjab, 56 per cent
of the population was Muslim and the largest single party in the legis-
lature was the Muslim League. The provincial League party believed
it had hitherto been kept out of office by the British governor, who had
encouraged a hastily-formed coalition to take office. But in fact, the
very existence of a government representing the principal communi-
ties had helped to maintain communal peace in the Punjab. The gov-
ernment alliance, however, was an uneasy one and the legislative
assembly was called only when absolutely necessary in order to pass
the provincial budget. Well before the 20 February statement, the
Muslim League executive had instructed the provincial League organ-
ization to launch, at the end of January 1947, an ‘all-out non-violent
mass struggle against the reactionary Punjab regime’ using as a
pretext the special powers which the coalition government had
assumed in order to reduce the risk of communal disorder. The pro-
vincial League had adopted Gandhian tactics, announced that it was
fighting for civil liberties, and invited Hindus and Sikhs to join it in the
strugglc* h soon became clear that the League did have the support of
the Muslim masses, for thousands of demonstrators throughout the
Punjab began to defy the government’s ban on public meetings and
processions. The authorities acted swiftly and with the minimum of
fuss. They arrested only the ringleaders and removed the remainder in
lorries to a considerable distance and left them to walk home! The

140 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

All-India Muslim League had now opened up its own attack on what it
called ‘persistent and widespread persecution’, and League members of
the central interim government had become vocal in their support of
what was nothing other than a campaign to overthrow a legally-
elected government.

Peaceful demonstrations had soon become larded with outbreaks of
violence, and after the British prime minister’s declaration of 20 Febru-
ary it became obvious that the coalition government in the Punjab no
longer served any purpose. It had been formed in the belief that there
was a distinction between problems of provincial administration and
those affecting India’s constitutional future, and that the negotiations
with the British referred only to the central government. Now the
whole business seemed to have been thrown open for discussion once
again. The Punjab’s chief minister decided it was necessary for all
parties to confer upon the attitude the Punjab should take towards
future events. His first step was to reach a settlement with the provincial
League party, which, in return for the release of prisoners and the
removal of the ban on public meetings, agreed to call off its civil dis-
obedience campaign. Four days later the Unionist ministry resigned,
and the following day the governor called upon the Muslim League
leader in die legislative assembly to attempt to form a ministry.

But the various communities of the Punjab were now in a belligerent
mood. For months, they had been collecting arms and drilling their
private armies. This had been done quite openly although the Unionist
ministry had chosen to close its eyes to it. One of the ‘civil liberties’
which the League was defending was the right to form private armies !
On the same evening as the Muslim League was invited to form a
ministry, the Master Tara Singh — a rabble-rouser of deceptively
benign appearance, who was the political leader of the Sikh com-
munity— addressed a mass rally in words which had become sickeningly
familiar in the oppressive atmosphere of India. Waving a large sword,
he declaimed ‘O Hindus and Sikhs ! Be ready for self-destruction. . . .
If we can snatch the government from the Britishers no one can stop us
from snatching the government from the Muslims. . . . Disperse from
here on the solemn affirmation that we shall not allow the League to
exist. ... We shall rule over them and will get the government, fight-
ing. I have sounded the bugle. Finish the Muslim League.’

The provincial League was unable to convince the governor that it

THE VICTORY

141

could form a stable ministry and on 5 March, under the constitutional
authority vested in him, the governor himself took over the administra-
tion of the province. Communal disorder now began to spread with
the aid of inflammatory speeches from so-called responsible leaders.
Fierce battles took place between rival gangs, and whole streets were
set ablaze by fire-raisers in the principal towns of the Punjab. Profes-
sional gangsters, of course, were doing their bit — and reaping the
profits. By the end of March, strong measures had restored some order
to the towns but in the villages the terror continued. Official figures
gave two thousand as the number of lives lost but there were probably
many more. The casualties in the wars of succession were beginning to
mount up. Under the circumstances then reigning in the Punjab, there
was no likelihood of any return to ministerial government. The Muslim
League, in its endeavour to gain power, had not only ensured that
power would be denied it but had brought the Punjab to the edge of
civil war. Civil disobedience had once again inevitably led to blood-
shed.

The politicians were now beginning to realize how bloody was the
background against which they were playing their endless game.
Nehru returned from a visit to the Punjab, sickened by what he had
seen. ‘I have seen ghastly sights,’ he said on his return to Delhi, ‘and I
have heard of behaviour by human beings which would degrade brutes.
All that has happened in the Punjab is intimately connected with politi-
cal affairs. If there is a grain of intelligence in any person he must realize
that whatever political objective he may aim at, this is not the way to
attain it. Any such attempt must bring, as it has in a measure brought,
ruin and destruction.’

One other thing, too, was becoming apparent. The British govern-
ment’s declaration of 20 February had not shocked the Indian leaders
into co-operation. By fixing a date for the transfer of power, the British
had done no more than intensify the fight for the succession. They had
encouraged Indians to take the decision into their own hands, but those
hands now held knives.

As the Punjab smouldered, the Congress Working Committee met
to discuss the British government’s declaration and to decide upon
future strategy. In one of its resolutions it recommended partition of
the Punjab into predominantly Muslim and predominantly Hindu and
Sikh areas, a principle already suggested by the Hindus and Sikhs of

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

142

the eastern part of the Punjab. This did not mean that Congress
envisaged the possibility of dividing India itself; it was simply that,
whatever happened in the future, one thing was now sure — there would
be some sort of provincial autonomy, and it was obviously a good idea
to set about creating new provinces which would not suffer from the
basic communal problem. Even if division of India actually came, any
Hindu areas which had already been cut away from the Muslim areas
of the Punjab and Bengal would naturally opt for India. But this was
only the long-term purpose of the resolution. Congress still believed
that Jinnah was a rational politician, out — as they themselves were —
for what he could get, and although he persisted in his demand for the
six ‘Pakistan provinces’, they thought he would finally back down
when faced with the certainty that two of these provinces — the Pun-
jab and Bengal — would be divided. Since it also seemed very unlikely
that either Assam or the NWFP would join a Pakistan grouping.
Congress believed Jinnah would realize that Pakistan could not work,
either administratively or economically. Again Congress misunder-
stood the nature of Jinnah’s ambitions. The achievement of ‘Pakistan*
was only incidental to them; Jinnah was determined that Congress
should not rule an undivided India; questions of viability were of no
interest to him. Congress was not alone in holding this reasonable
opinion of Jinnah. Many non-partisan observers at the time — including
the author of this book — believed despite all appearances to the con-
trary that Jinnah might be persuaded that a federal India, with pro-
vincial autonomy, would be infinitely better than any tattered and
truncated Pakistan. But all were wrong. And Jinnah was not
prepared to wait for Congress to strike the first blow. He and his
lieutenants were already at work organizing civil disobedience cam-
paigns for the NWFP and Assam.

The situation in the North-West Frontier Province was unique in
India. It had the largest Muslim majority — 92 per cent of the popula-
tion— of any in India, and the province was virtually free from com-
munal rivalry' just because the odds were so heavily weighted against
non-Muslims. Early in nationalist history, when the League was still
in the wilderness waiting for its Moses, Congress had claimed the
allegiance of nationalists in the NWFP who had built up a strong move-
ment known as the Red Shirts under the Khan brothers, Abdul
Ghaffar and Dr Khan Sahib, the latter of whom was now chief minister.

THE VICTORY

143

The population of the province was mainly Pathan by race. Between
the NWFP and the frontier of Afghanistan there were tribal areas,
not directly administered by the NWFP government, whose tribes
were also Pathan by race and semi-independent of government inter-
ference. Relations between the tribes and the British were handled by
officers of the central department of external affairs. Muslim League
propagandists had been active among the tribes, so that when Nehru
visited tribal areas in October 1946, in his capacity as member for
external affairs, he was received with hostility and even open violence
wherever he went. The League used Nehru’s visit for all it was worth,
as a symbol of that Hindu domination it claimed was threatening the
Pathans, and then, in the second half of February 1947, launched a civil
disobedience campaign in the NWFP which soon followed the same
sordid pattern as that in the Punjab. The League called for the resigna-
tion of Dr Khan Sahib, but he refused to be stampeded.

The situation in Assam differed both from that in the Punjab and that
in the NWFP. In Assam the Muslims were in a minority, making up
only about one third of the population, and the League’s claim to
Assam as one of the six ‘Pakistan provinces’ was based solely on its
geographical position. Because of their comparatively small numbers,
the Muslims in the province could not hope to achieve much success
with a civil disobedience campaign, but this did not prevent them from
trying. Conveniently for them, they could make use of an issue which
had almost become traditional. Assam, fearing immigrants into its
fertile lands from Bengal’s poverty-stricken Muslim majority, had a
history of evicting Muslim squatters. The British had done it, a coali-
tion government headed by a Muslim League chief minister had done
it, the current Congress ministry merely carried on the tradition. The
League, however, nothing daunted, proceeded to organize mass
invasions by Muslims from Bengal, and encouraged them to squat
upon government-owned grazing land. As usual, the invasion began
peacefully enough but soon degenerated into indiscriminate and
bloody violence. At the beginning of April 1947, disorder had spread
to such an extent that the government was compelled to call in the
army.

Elsewhere in India violence also spluttered on, sometimes quiescent,
sometimes erupting into bloodshed. Only the south remained reason-
ably silent. Agents of the extremists of all parties moved through the

144 the last years of British india

slums of the great cities, meeting on their missions of incitement com-
munist agitators also intent upon spreading unease among the workers.
Communist influence was growing amongst the peasants in certain
districts, inciting them to violence against their landlords. In nine out
of the eleven provinces of British India, such civil liberties as there had
been were now pushed aside and the governments were ruling by
ordinance, exercising wide powers of arrest and stringent control over
demonstrations. And although the police and the army were still un-
touched by communal antipathies, it was feared that the canker might
soon enter their minds too. India trembled with uneasiness and fear,
fair game for the agitators, and every interested party was prepared to
fish in the troubled waters, hoping to land some prize to their own
advantage.

It was to this scene of blood and intrigue that the new viceroy came,
landing at Delhi in the hot afternoon of 22 March 1947.

6 Leaping in the Dark

To anyone standing in the throne-room of Viceroy’s House, New
Delhi, on a day in late March 1947 and knowing nothing of what went
on behind the scenes, it would have appeared that there was very little
wrong with the Indian empire. The pomp and the splendour of a vice-
regal installation were at least superficially the same as they had always
been. Covered with medals and decorations, the viceroy and vicereine
stood at their gilded thrones surrounded by distinguished-looking
Englishmen and the tributary princes of the king-emperor, gleaming
like jewelled birds. Never thelcss, there were signs of the changing
times. For one thing, there were motion-picture cameras and radio-
microphones, and the audience was not quite what it would once have
been. There were rather more Indians than usual, and many wore the
homespun and peculiar white forage caps — the so-called Gandhi cap —
which were the semi-official uniform of Congress. The viceroy, too,
after the rich-sounding words of the oath and the equally impressive
syllables of his august names had echoed away, broke a tradition — and
made a speech. The phrases were crisp and decisive, like a battle order.
He was there, he said bluntly, not to maintain British rule in India, but
to pass it on.

THB VICTORY

145

Many in that room saw the viceroy only as the man they would have
to persuade, trick if necessary, but above all make their friend. For
despite the play-acting, the pomp and circumstance which they had
just witnessed, this was not the noon-day of imperialism but its
twilight. There was every reason for the viceroy to speak decisively.
Unlike Wavell, he had received from the Labour government what
seemed to be unambiguous instructions concerning his task.

These instructions are worth giving in full since, despite their
apparent precision, they indicate that the Labour government — and in
particular the prime minister — still wanted to believe that the 20
February announcement was going to shock the Indian leaders into
some sort of co-operation among themselves; that the British cabinet
was unwilling to face the unpalatable truths that Wavell had put to
them; and that they still under-estimated, and in fact totally mis-
understood, the nature and depth of Jinnah’s demands. The govern-
ment’s instructions to Lord Mountbatten were contained in a letter
from the prime minister :

Prime Minister to Admiral Mountbatten March 1947

The statement which was issued at the time of the announcement of your
appointment sets out the policy of die Government and the principles in
accordance with which the transfer of power to Indian hands should be
effected.

My colleagues of the Cabinet Mission and I have discussed widi you the
general lines of your approach to the problems wliich will confront you in
India. It will, I think, be useful to you to have on record the salient points which
you should have in mind in dealing with the situation. 1 have, therefore, set
them down here.

It is the definite objective of His Majesty’s Government to obtain a unitary
Government for British India and the Indian States, if possible within the
British Commonwealth, dirough the medium of a Constituent Assembly, set
up and run in accordance widi the Cabinet Mission s plan, and you should do
the utmost in your power to persuade all Parties to work together to this end,
and advise His Majesty’s Government, in die light of developments, as to the
steps that will have to be taken.

Since, however, this plan can only become operative in respect of British
India by agreement between the major Parties, there can be no question of com-
pelling either major Party to accept it.

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

I46

If by October 1 you consider that there is no prospect of reaching a settle-
ment on the basis of a unitary government for British India, either with or with-
out the co-operation of the Indian [princely] States, you should report to His
Majesty’s Government on the steps which you consider should be taken for the
handing over of power on the due date.

It is, of course, important that the Indian States should adjust their relations
with the authorities to whom it is intended to hand over power in British India;
but as was explicitly stated by the Cabinet Mission, His Majesty’s Government
do not intend to hand over their powers and obligations under paramountcy to
any successor Government. It is not intended to bring paramountcy as a system
to a conclusion earlier than the date of the final transfer of power, but you are
authorized, at such time as you think appropriate, to enter into negotiations
with individual States for adjusting their relations with die Crown.

You will do your best to persuade the rulers of any Indian States in which
polidcal progress has been slow to progress rapidly towards some form of more
democratic government. You will also aid and assist the States in coming to
fair and just arrangements with the leaders of British India as to their future
relationships.

The date fixed for the transfer of power is a flexible one to within one
month; but you should aim at 1 June 1948 as the effective date for the transfer
of power.

In your relations with the Interim Government you will be guided by die
general terms of die Viceroy’s letter of 30 May 1946 to the President of the
Congress Party, and of the statement made by the Secretary of State for India
in the House of Lords on 13 March 1947. These statements made it clear that,
while the Interim Government would not have the same powers as a Dominion
Government, His Majesty’s Government would treat die Interim Government
with the same consultation and consideration as a Dominion Government, and
give it the greatest possible freedom in the day-to-day exercise of the adminis-
tration of die country.

It is essential that there should be the fullest co-operation widi the Indian
leaders in all steps that arc taken as to the wididrawal of British power so that
the process may go forward as smoodily as possible.

The keynote of your administration should therefore be the closest co-opera-
tion with the Indians and you should make it clear to the whole of the Secre-
tary of State’s Services that diis is so, and that it is dieir duty to their countries
to work to tills end.

You should take every opportunity of stressing the importance of ensuring
that die transfer of power is effected with full regard to the defence require-
ments of India. In die first place you will impress upon the Indian leaders the
great importance of avoiding any breach in die continuity of the Indian Army

THE VICTORY

147

and of maintaining the organization of defence upon an all-Indian basis.
Secondly you will point out the need for continued collaboration in the
security of the Indian Ocean area for which provision might be made in an
agreement between the two countries. At a suitable date His Majesty’s Govern-
ment would be ready to send military and other experts to India in order to
assist in discussing the terms of such an agreement.

You will no doubt inform Provincial Governors of the substance of this
letter.

Armed with these instructions Mountbatten had made his prepara-
tions for perhaps the greatest challenge he had ever faced. He did so in
a maimer which had been proved under the stress of war. Two main
factors had contributed to Mountbatten’s success as Supreme Allied
Commander in South-East Asia — his choice of subordinates, and his
very lively sense of the uses of personal publicity. He had, of course,
other qualities too, including immense charm. ‘Charm’ is often an
empty word, but not in Mountbatten’s ease. With him, it managed to
be simultaneously egalitarian and superior. Once, during the war
Mountbatten arrived at a town in Burma a few hours after its capture.
Everybody was very tired and rather grubby, but Mountbatten himself
looked fresh and purposeful. Yet the impression he gave was not that
he had just arrived from a comfortable base headquarters but that,
somehow, he had managed to slough off the sweat and dirt to which
everyone else had succumbed. He brushed aside the officers and the
general ‘bull’ of a commander’s parade, told the soldiers to break ranks,
and began to confide his thoughts and hopes to them. It was a masterly
performance, and at least one sceptical soldier — the author of this book
— went away convinced that great events lay in the hollow of Mount-
batten’s hands and that there was no need to worry about their out-
come. Wartime troops had been mellowed by the Mountbatten
propaganda and personality, and in 1947 the time had come for Indian
leaders to receive the same treatment.

The new viceroy had brought with him from England a special team
of advisors — though ‘advisors’ perhaps is too large a definition. They
were in fact part brains trust, part legmen, for the viceroy. Their role
as advisors was mainly to consist of leaking suggestions, and ‘appreci-
ations’ of the viceroy’s point of view, to Indian political leaders. The
men were very carefully chosen. The first was Field-Marshal Lord
Ismay, whose authority as Churchill’s wartime chicf-of-staff made him

i48 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

acceptable to the Conservative party. Ismay had spent many years as
a soldier in India and was on good terms with Auchinleck, the com-
mander-in-chief. It was believed that he would be extremely valuable
in the viceroy’s probably delicate relations with the military and civil
service hierarchy, who, on the whole, distrusted Mountbatten s
Madison Avenue command techniques. Next was Sir Eric Mieville,
who had been private secretary to Lord Willingdon when the latter
was viceroy, and subsequently an Assistant Private Secretary to King
George VI. Ismay had been brought out of a well-earned retirement
by an appeal to his love for India, and Mieville came from the financial
world of the City of London, to which many senior servants of the
Crown seem to gravitate. The others who made up the team were
Mountbatten’s trusted and loyal wartime subordinates — Captain
Ronald Brockman RN, Commander George Nicholls RN, Lieutenant-
Colonel Vernon Erskinc Crum, and Alan Campbell-Johnson, who had
been in charge of Mountbatten’s wartime publicity.

V. P. Mcnon, who was to play a significant part in the events of the
next few months, later described the British government’s deadline of
June 1948 for the British withdrawal from India as ‘a leap in the dark .
Mountbatten had intended to bring with him strong lights with which
to brighten that dark, but it was often to happen that, when the lights
had passed, the darkness was even blacker than before. Mountbatten
retained a number of Wavell’s subordinates, too, in particular George
Abell, who was believed by Congress to be pro-Muslim, and V. P.
Menon, a Hindu who had been Reforms Commissioner and Constitu-
tional Advisor to both Linlithgow and Wavell. Menon probably knew
more about the princely states and the real problems involved in the
transfer of power than anyone else in India. Since I94^» ^d been
a close friend and advisor of the Congress leader, Sardar Patel, and
their association was to be of tremendous significance to independent
India.

As soon as the charade of the installation was over, Mountbatten and
his staff went to work on reconnaissance and intelligence. The effect of
Lord Mountbatten’s charm, and Lady Mountbatten’s too, upon
Nehru was profound. Where Nehru had distrusted the bluff, honest
Wavell, he found the Mountbattens very much to his taste. This was
not surprising, as the two men had much in common, and their attrac-
tion for each other was reinforced by one great dissimilarity. Nehru

THE VICTORY *49

was introspective, questioning his ideas and actions in the lonely room
of his own mind and rarely receiving clearcut answers. Mountbatten
was extrovert, radiating self-confidence, and doing so with such an
aura of certainty that it seemed also to flow into those who came in
contact with him. Mountbatten supplied Nehru with the dimension
missing from his own personality.

Gandhi, now relegated to the position of Congress s private saint,
was also to receive the full blast of the Mountbatten charm, but there
was really no point of contact between the two men. They might as
well have been of different species. At the viceroy’s invitation, Gandhi
returned from a pilgrimage to the riot-torn areas of Bihar to meet him.
When they met, Gandhi suggested a plan to the viceroy. There was in
fact nothing new about the plan, for Rajagopalachari had first put it
forward as long ago as 1940- Then, he had had Gandhi s secret approval.
Now he had succeeded in persuading Gandhi to put it forward as his
own. The viceroy, said Gandhi, should call upon Mr Jinnah to form a
government, leaving it to Jinnah to decide whether there should be
Hindu ministers or not; except for the viceregal veto, Gandhi added,
the government should be given a free hand. The idea, though spec-
tacular enough, had even less chance of being accepted by Congress in
1947 — regardless of Gandhi s support — than it had seven years before.
Inevitably, Congress threw out the suggestion, and Gandhi returned to

Bihar.

One recent British commentator on the events leading up to the
transfer of power has seen Congress s rejection of the plan as part of
some Machiavellian plot by Mountbatten to eliminate Gandhi from
future discussions because of his antagonism to partition. It was, how-
ever, hardly necessary for the viceroy to go to such lengths in order to
dispose of Gandhi. The Mahatma no longer spoke for Congress and it
is very doubtful whether he could have re-imposed his influence even
if he had wanted to. At this stage, when India’s freedom was in sight,
Gandhi was no longer interested in it. He had returned to the role of
Hindu reformer which he had, in fact, never discarded. Now he was
concerned, as he had always been, only with reducing violence. He
was slowly coming to the conclusion that partition might be the only
way to do this, and he was later to throw such influence as he still
possessed on the side of those who were prepared to accept Pakistan.
Gandhi did have a sound sense of reality— although it was not always

150 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

apparent — but he interpreted every event in terms of its effect on his
own self-imposed mission of reform; even the partition of India was
not now to be allowed to stand in his way. Unlike the other Congress
leaders, Gandhi had never yearned for political power, only that those
in power should be favourable to his ideas of reform. Now, in 1947, he
was 77 years of age, and even saints do not live for ever. Before he died
he wanted to put an end to the sufferings of the innocent. He returned
to Bihar because, for him, the petty wrangling and intrigues at Delhi
were of little importance in face of the greater menace which stalked
India. And who, after a little thought, would deny that he was right?

With Jinnah, Mountbatten was also unable to estabhsh any warm
relationship, for Jinnah was just as self-confident as Mountbatten, and
infinitely more rigid. Jinnah was partly convinced that Mountbatten
was pro-Congress, and absolutely convinced that he was not to be
trusted. It would have made no difference to Jinnah whoever had been
sent out as viceroy. It was the British whom he distrusted, and Mount-
batten’s blandishments seemed only a variation on the old attempts to
force him to accept a Congress-dominated central government. Jinnah
was now as unapproachable — and as unamenable to reason — as Hider
at Bcrchtesgadcn, and it was not long before Mountbatten realized that
the chances of handing over power to a united India were remote, at
least within the present time limit of June 1948. Mountbatten’s instruc-
tions were precise, however — by that date or near it Britain must quit
Lidia, united or divided. For the first time, the actual strength of
Jinnah seems to have been properly appreciated by someone in author-
ity, and the conclusion was of overwhelming importance. Until then,
practically everyone had deluded themselves into believing that the
British could somehow hand over the inheritance intact, thus preserv-
ing a few shreds of justification for nearly two hundred years of Bridsh
rule. The real truth was unpalatable, and no one in Britain had been
prepared to swallow it even though their reluctance might imply that
in fact they wanted to hold on to India. Whatever may be said of
Mountbatten’s handling of subsequent events, for one thing at least
history should remember him — he refused to be sentimental about
India’s British past and was not afraid to face the awesome problems of
her future.

But Mountbatten’s discoveries were comparatively extraneous to the
more immediate problem, which was how to hold up the drift to

THE VICTORY X5X

anarchy and civil war. On 15 April he invited Gandhi and Jinnah to
issue a joint statement condemning the use of force for political ends
and appealing to all communities to refrain from acts of violence. It
was rather like telling a fire to stop burning. Jinnah in any case had no
intention of calling off the agitation in the NWFP — according to him
it was only ‘non-violent civil disobedience — and it was there that
peace was most needed. Muslim League agitators were still working
on the tribes, trying to arouse them. If they succeeded, the whole
frontier might go up in flames, since the tribes were only too willing

to accept any excuse for plunder and loot.

The interim government was utterly divided into two blocs who
were scarcely on speaking terms, each pursuing policies designed to
antagonize and humiliate the other. Nehru, in making diplomatic
appointments abroad, for example, sent a Muslim member of Congress
as ambassador to the United States, while the commerce minister a
member of the Muslim League — despatched trade representatives
abroad who were more concerned with spreading propaganda for
Pakistan than with doing business for India. The finance minister,
Liaquat Ali, primed with advice from a Muslim finance-department
civil servant who was pro-Lcaguc, put forward a radical budget
imposing a 25 per cent tax on business profits over ^7,500 per annum.
Since it was Congress which proclaimed a policy of socialism, the tax
should have been welcomed by Congress, but the one snag was tliat
most Congress funds came from Hindu big business. Liaquat s proposal
was in fact a deliberate attempt to create a division between the business
and socialist wings of Congress, but it caused so much trouble that the
viceroy was compelled to intervene and the amount of the tax was
reduced. The interim government stumbled on, managing somehow to
keep its balance and waiting for someone to make a decision.

The manoeuvres of the interim government, however, were only a
sideshow — the real game was being played out behind the scenes.
Ismay and Abell were using all their powers of persuasion upon the
Muslim League in an endeavour to convince its leaders that Mount-
batten was not unfavourable to the solution of partition, and Nehru
was undergoing one of those characteristic changes of attitude which
had marked, like milestones, the road of his political life. The sufferings
of the Indian people were now working upon his mind. So was the
special type of despair to which he was a victim. Freedom was so near

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

152

and he was impatient with the petty intrigues and falsities of lesser men.
He, too, was getting old, and the hot furnace that is a Delhi summer
seemed to bum away his vitality. Only one way out seemed to stare
him in the face. ‘By cutting off the head/ he was to say later, ‘we shall
get rid of the headache.’ By the end of April 1947, Nehru’s attitude to
partition had been completely reversed. ‘The Muslim League can have
Pakistan,’ he said. ‘But on the condition that they do not take away
other parts of India which do not wish to join Pakistan.’ The decision,
however, was not Nehru’s alone. It was highly unlikely at this stage
that, by himself, he could have carried Congress with him, and Gandhi
apparently was still in favour of a united India — at least he had said
nothing to the contrary.

There were more profound reasons for Congress to change its mind
than Nehru’s despair and the alleged influence of Lady Mountbatten
over him. Sardar Patel had reported that the Congress machine was
falling apart under the strain of communal disorder and the failure of its
leaders to achieve independence quickly. Inside Congress, various
groups were jockeying for power — jobs for the boys were in sight and
they wanted the profits soon. There was a growing feeling inside
Congress that even a divided India was preferable to no India at all.
Business was declining, factories had been made idle by strikes, land-
lords were threatened by uprisings of their tenants. Powerful capitalist
interests in Congress were now preparing for the possibility of dis-
owning Nehru, just as they had disposed of Gandhi, and Patel was their
spokesman. It was he who had first persuaded them to put up their
money — now they were beginning to demand their dividends. It was
also Patel who had put forward the resolution calling for the partition
of the Punjab and Bengal. Now he was to put forward the partition
of India, not to satisfy Jinnah but to save Congress from collapse. The
socialists did not count — had never counted for much — in Congress,
and they could safely be ignored.

Through V. P. Menon, Patel had already had it suggested to the
viceroy that he might be prepared to be talked into partition if Mount-
batten would set about persuading him. Mountbatten, using all his very
considerable arts of persuasion, did manage to convince Patel. The
viceroy thought that he had won another victory. But with Patel,
Mountbatten was really out of his depth.

There is no doubt that Jinnah now had powerful allies in Congress.

THE VICTORY A->J

However, the public had to be kept in the dark; Congress must seem
to yield to the logic of the situation, to accept the Pakistan solution
reluctantly but in the interests of the Indian people , so that there might
be an end to the murder of the innocents. There was, of course, always
a possibility that communal violence might die out of its own accord,
through the inertia of the Indian people, as had tended to be the experi-
ence of the past; an Indian mob would grow tired of violence with
almost the same speed as it could be incited to it, and the hot weather,
too, though encouraging quick tempers, also produced a lassitude
which inhibited prolonged activity. There was, however, little real
possibility of violence subsiding altogether, for agitators were still at
work among the people, and Congress did its share in maintaining the
atmosphere of unease. The department of information and broad-
casting in Delhi, of which Patel was in charge, issued news stones
which led inevitably to further violence. Many of these stories appear to
have been cither misrepresentations, criminal errors, or downright
lies. One example will suffice. A newspaper report, later traced to the
department, disclosed that the police had discovered three hundred
and three rifles in a Muslim village. In fact, only one rifle had been
found, and this was the standard British weapon officially called, after
the size of its bore, ‘a -303’. Stories such as this undermined the work
Gandhi and others were doing in the troubled areas and kept com-
munal fears simmering.

The Muslim League, of course, was not idle either. Apart from its
campaign in the NWFP, it was also engaged in a more subtle war on
the interim government. Partition was not merely a question of draw-
ing lines upon a map; the assets of British India also had to be divided.
The most important of these assets was the Indian Army. On this issue,
Liaquat Ali emerged as one of the principal architects of Pakistan.
Whilejinnah remained remote, Liaquat Ah acted. Liaquat was the very
opposite of Jinnah. He was short and jolly, where Jinnah was thin and
withdrawn. Liaquat, who had been educated in India, was a consider-
able orator, whilejinnah delivered his tedious speeches in the manner
of a pedantic schoolmaster. Liaquat breathed warmth and earthy
assurance, while his leader gave the impression that lie had just returned
from Mount Sinai. As early as 8 April 1947* Liaquat had put forward
to Mountbattcn a suggestion that the armed forces should be re-
organized so that they could be easily divided when the time came for

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

154

partition. This, of course, pre-judged die outcome of the political
setdement and Mountbatten was not prepared to consider it. ‘The
mechanics won’t permit it,’ he said, ‘and I won’t.’ But Liaquat was not
going to give up the initiative. Instead, he produced a remarkably
detailed plan, blandly remarking that the preparation for such a plan
would take time, but ‘if taken in hand immediately it should be ready
about the time that a decision on the main constitutional issue is
reached’. He also pointed out that the British government’s deadline
for the transfer of power was so near that the viceroy ought to have
some plan ready just in case it became necessary. This was obviously an
occasion when Congress — if it had really been prepared to fight par-
tition— should have resisted any suggestion of dividing the armed
forces, for it was clear to everybody that Liaquat’s proposal was loaded.
If the army could be divided, the greatest obstacle to political partition
would have been overcome.

But the only real resistance to Liaquat’s plan came from General
Auchinleck, the commander-in-chief, who bluntly replied that: ‘The
Armed Forces of India, as they now stand, cannot be split up into two
parts each of which will form a self-contained Armed Force,’ and he
buttressed his opinion with facts and cogent argument, the gist of which
was that there was not enough time for reorganization before June
1948. Auchinleck further warned that rumours of a plan to divide the
army should not be allowed to reach the general public. ‘I wish to
stress,’ he wrote, ‘that in the present state of communal unrest in India
any publication of such discussions might well be disastrous to the
continued morale and efficiency of the Armed Forces.’ Auchinleck
was supported in this opinion by the defence minister, Baldev Singh.

While the stone that Liaquat had thrown was spreading its ripples,
Mountbatten and his staff had been at work preparing a draft plan for
the transfer of power. As early as 1 1 April, Ismay had handed V. P.
Menon ‘the bare bones of a possible plan for the transfer of power’, and
asked him for his comments on how, for example, to divide the
Punjab, Bengal and Assam. Menon’s reply included a number of
suggestions for dealing with most of the problems that might possibly
arise.

The draft plan was also submitted to the governors of the provinces,
who had been summoned to Delhi for a conference with the viceroy,
and some of the plan’s details were leaked to various interested parties.

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155

By the time, therefore, that the constituent assembly met for its third
session on 28 April, it had become obvious that partition of some sort
was inevitable. The assembly nevertheless continued to pass resolutions,
all of them seeming to indicate that the assembly supported the idea of
one strong, central, government. Its discussions, however, were by no
means all abstract exercises, for much of what it decided later formed
the foundation of the Indian constitution. One of the most spectacular
of its decisions was that Untouchability should be abolished and dis-
crimination made an indictable offence. At the time, however, the
assembly’s activity seemed to be irrelevant, and, realizing this, its
members adjourned on 2 May.

Though there was now general belief among the higher echelons
that partition was in sight, Gandhi suddenly came out strongly against
partition of the Punjab and Bengal. After a brief talk with Jinnah,
which had been arranged by the viceroy, Gandhi declared that he did
not ‘accept the principle of division’, and began to preach the gospel
of unity — without, however, much of his old conviction. This was
partly because he was becoming conscious of his inability to influence
Congress as he had done in the past. Gandhi had sought to use Congress
for his own narrow purpose, but Congress had used him in the struggle
against the British. Now, when the prizes of freedom were within
grasp, he was no longer needed at the helm. Saints are out of
place when there is hard bargaining to be done between business-
men.

Jinnah was as hostile as Gandhi to the division of the Punjab and
Bengal. He denounced as a ‘sinister move’ the proposal to divide the
provinces. If such a division was logical, why, he asked, should not the
same principle be applied in other provinces? Tliat, too, was logical,
however ridiculous it might sound. Perhaps, he suggested, the problem
of Hindu minorities in Pakistan and Muslim minorities in Hindu India
could be solved by an exchange of population. The answer to this, of
course, was that it would be much easier to exchange populations after
Bengal and the Punjab had been divided, because then the numbers
involved would be smaller.

But was Jinnah’s point, about division taken to its logical conclusion,
as ridiculous as he made it out to be? In fact, looking around India at
that time, it seemed that fragmentation was inevitable. Some of the
larger princely states pointed out that, when British paramountcy

156 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

lapsed, they would legally be completely independent and they might
choose to remain so. The Sikhs were claiming a state of their own, to
be carved out of the Punjab. In the NWFP, the Pathans were suggest-
ing ‘Pathanistan’ as a solution to their ‘national’ aims. In Bengal,
Suhrawardy was still dreaming of empire, and he declared that rather
than submit to vivisection he would create a ‘sovereign, independent,
and undivided Bengal in a divided India’. Jinnah, naturally, denounced
Suhrawardy ’s intention; but certain Congressmen, after being re-
assured by Suhrawardy that both Hindus and Muslims would share in
the government of the new state, gave him their support.

With all these rival claims in the air, violence was growing just when
the administration was becoming progressively weaker. Calcutta had
a daily toll of dead and was always on the edge of new massacres; in
the Punjab, fire-raising and assassination continued; the Red Shirts,
the Congress movement in the NWFP, abandoned its lip-service to
non-violence and began arming volunteers. In retaliation, the League
was smuggling arms, many of them of Russian origin, from Afghani-
stan, while at least one European arms manufacturer was offering
special terms to emissaries of the League.

Large-scale migration from ‘unsafe’ areas was already taking place,
and many refugees flooded into Delhi and the surrounding country-
side. The administration’s grasp was obviously weakening. Rumours
of division had reached the army. The police were not above suspicion,
as everyone had thought; in fact they were riddled by communal
divisions. One thing became apparent — even June 1948 was too far
away, and it was more than possible that the existing machinery of
government would not last that long.

Mountbattcn’s handling of this situation has received much criti-
cism. It has even been suggested that the date of June 1948 was fixed to
suit his convenience, because he wanted to return to the Navy as soon
as possible. This is unfair to Attlee as well as to Mountbatten. June 1948
had already been planted in Attlee’s mind by the Wavell plan for
phased withdrawal. It was also roughly the date at which experts
thought the administrative services in India would have become so
short of British staff as to be unable to continue. Naturally enough,
Mountbatten had been anxious to set some sort of time limit to his
appointment; his future lay in the Navy, and it was highly unlikely
that having been the last viceroy of India would count very much

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157

towards promotion. He had, in fact, asked for and received an assur-
ance that he would not lose in seniority by his appointment in India.
The experts’ estimate to Attlee coincided with the time Mountbatten
thought he could safely spare from his career in the Navy.

After a few weeks in India, however, Mountbatten came to the
correct conclusion that June 1948 was not too soon but too late.
Wavell’s estimate had been far too hopeful — the British administration
was dying on its feet. Mountbatten was faced with two simple alter-
natives. He could wait until the administration collapsed — and, with
it, such law and order as still prevailed — facing, in the interim, growing
hostility from both the major political parties. Or, as rapidly as pos-
sible, he could make the best possible arrangements for handing over
power to a divided India. Both alternatives were hedged with the
threat of tragedy. The only possible aim was to try and minimize its
extent.

Critics, with the past laid out before them like a comic strip, can
weigh cause and effect in the context of a complete episode. The makers
of events do not have that privilege. Because partition led to the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the Punjab, that is no
criterion by which to judge partition itself. In April and May 1947, the
author of this book saw not only the actual trouble spots of northern
India but also some of those places which were as yet untouched by
the disease of communal violence. He listened to men who were not
only talking of war but actively preparing for it. He saw armouries of
weapons, some stolen, some bought, some manufactured in secret
workshops. In one place, he even saw light artillery, mortars and a
small tank. Some of the princes were engaged in increasing the strength
of their state forces, and not only for the purpose of defending them-
selves. In one mind at least, there was no doubt that partition meant
fewer might die. There was no alternative which would have guaran-
teed peace, and Jinnah, Nehru and the viceroy were not the final
arbiters. If partition were agreed, it would however be in the interests
of both parties to clamp down on the extremists in their own areas,
because it would give them a vested interest in keeping the peace.
Mountbatten made his choice, and history will remember him for the
speed and decision with which he pursued its fulfdment. He made
mistakes, pushed the wheel of history at times a little too forcefully,
but few men could have done better and most would have done worse.

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

158

India had already entered the valley of the shadow, and her only hope
was to be hurried through it as quickly as possible.

Although Mountbatten now seemed convinced that partition was
inevitable, however, he did not believe that it would be wise for the
British to do the dividing. What he felt should be done, in fact, was to
take Gandhi’s old advice to the British, and get out and leave India to
it. He did not seem to realize that neither Congress nor the League
would ever agree upon the mechanics. Both sides preferred that the
viceroy and the British government should make the decisions for
them. Having consented to an amputation, they did not want to think
of the knife — all they hoped to have to do was chloroform their
consciences and, if anything went wrong, blame the surgeons.

Events now began to move with the speed of a landslide. On 2 May,
Ismay flew to London with the viceroy’s appreciation of the situation
and his proposals for action. It was for just this kind of job that Ismay
had been asked to accompany Mountbatten. He had a deep affection
for India, and his general leaning was towards a conservative approach
to the problem of the transfer of power. But he was also extremely
shrewd and intelligent, and he seldom allowed sentiment to obscure his
appreciation of the facts. He had been deeply shocked by the com-
munal antipathies in India. ‘It tore at you,’ he said later, ‘all the time.
... We British had all the responsibility and none of the power. The
police force was undermined and the Civil Service was frustrated and
madly anxious. They were blamed by both Nehru and Jinnah for
everything that went wrong.’ Ismay was soon convinced that to delay
partition was to invite the most terrible disaster. He and George Abell
were instructed to secure cabinet approval of Mountbatten’s draft
plan, ‘to hammer it out clause by clause with the Government and
officials concerned’.

Before Ismay left, there had been a continuous round of discussion
and argument. The viceroy’s brains trust thought they now had die
situation taped. Auchinleck, too, had become convinced that there was
no alternative to partition, and he had left for London on 29 April to
explain to the government just what strategical problems would be
created by dividing the Indian Army. But one question of considerable
importance, or so it seemed to Mountbatten, was discussed the day
before Ismay and Abell left for London. This was whether India, after
independence, would remain in the British Commonwcaldi. On the

THE VICTORY J59

surface, this may have seemed irrelevant to the great issues then facing
Mountbatten and the British government. It may have appeared as an
attempt to salve British pride. But that was not the first consideration.

Suppose that, after partition, one of the new states wanted to join the
Commonwealth while the other did not? Britain might then find
herself siding in world affairs with one part of the old India against the
other. If past speeches by Congress leaders were anything to go on,
they did not want to remain in the Commonwealth, because member-
ship would imply the dominion status which they had rejected long
before. But at the meeting before Ismay left for London, Mievillc
casually disclosed that V. P. Menon had told him Patel might be willing
to accept dominion status, at least for some period after independence.
Menon had in fact managed to convince Patel that, as the situation now
stood, Britain favoured the Muslim League, but partition, with both
India and Pakistan as dominions, would eliminate the League s pre-
ferred status with the British’ and ‘facilitate the parliamentary approval
of the transfer of power’. Patel had yielded to this argument. But
Nehru was not told of it; it was now becoming fairly obvious that
Patel was the most important figure among Congress leaders.

Menon was soon, with the viceroy s approval, to put a dominion
status plan to Nehru, and the time was approaching when Congress
leaders would jettison all the beliefs to which they had stuck so ten-
aciously before it became obvious that the British were leaving. Menon
was ‘asked to prepare a paper setting out the procedure whereby a form
of dominion status under the alternative plans of Partition and Demis-
sion’ might be agreed, a simple-sounding request, but one of consider-
able future importance for India and the Commonwealth. Its final
effect was to change the form of the Commonwealth and even allow
a republic to remain inside it.

The plan Ismay and Abell took with them to London on 2 May was
highly ingenious, but it had been worked upon in a closed and private
room by Mountbattcn’s brains trust. Before he had left for India,
Mountbatten had received from Attlee a number of skeleton plans,
prepared by the prime minister s advisors, for settling the Indian
problem. But no Indian had been involved in putting the Hesh around
this one, and the comments which V. P. Menon attached to a draft
given him by Ismay were ignored; Menon insists that lie told Ismay the
plan would not function. It had in fact been an original draft that was

THE LAST YEARS OP BRITISH INDIA

160

sent to Menon, in the hope that he would leak the gist of it to Patel,
and the plan Ismay actually took to London was an altered and amended
version.

In considering the plan, Mountbatten was guided by his conviction
that the Labour government would be most unwilling to accept the
onerous task of actually dividing India into two new states. His own
view of the government’s attitude was that it wished to be rid of India
as soon as possible and at almost any price. Here he misjudged the
Labour prime minister, though probably not some of his colleagues.
Attlee was certainly anxious to dispose of the Indian problem, which
was taking up too much of the government’s time, but he was also
conscious that his government needed a boost to its status and prestige.
A Conservative administration could have handed India over to
anarchy and chaos, for imperialists were expected to be callous, but the
‘party of the people’ could not. Furthermore, the disposal of India —
one of the great imperial assets — must not appear to be a unilateral act
by the ideologues of the Labour party. Attlee wanted to achieve at
least some measure of bi-partisan responsibility. The Conservatives
were already condemning him for rushing independence. If India were
to dissolve into a blood bath, criticism would become really virulent,
and the prime minister would also have to face attacks from the ‘do-
gooders’ in his own party, who would be quick to censure him on
those abstract grounds of humanity which are so difficult to counter.
Mountbatten, however, thought that if he adapted the original Cabinet
Mission plan to suit the new situation, he would be offering Attlee the
sort of solution that would appeal to him, especially as the prime
minister had already said that it might be necessary to hand over power
to the provinces themselves. The viceroy also mistakenly believed that
he held the Indian leaders in the hollow of his hand, so Ismay took with
him to London the viceroy’s assurance that the plan would be accepted
by both parties in India. Disillusionment was not long in coming.

The plan sent to London was deceptively simple — to transfer power
to the provinces, leaving only a weak federal administration at the
centre. Any polarization into groups would then be a matter for the
individual provinces to decide, after the British had left. Mountbatten
thought diat the only likely resistance to this plan would come from
Jinnah. As no one other than Mountbatten and his staff had actually
seen the plan in its final form — only a few highlights had been disclosed

THE VICTORY

1 6 1

verbally — the viceroy should have had every reason for feeling uneasy.
But it was not from Jinnah that Mountbatten was to receive the first
signs of criticism. This came first from V. P. Mcnon, who had accom-
panied the viceroy to Simla on 7 May and was at last able to put for-
ward his — and Patel's — view on the subject.

On 8 May, at the invitation of the viceroy, Nehru arrived at Vice-
regal Lodge, Simla. He was accompanied by a newcomer, V. K.
Krishna Menon. V.K.K., as he was known to distinguish him from the
many other Menons, was no relation to V.P. Most of his political life
had been spent in London, where he had been a socialist member of
the St Pancras Borough Council and an active propagandist for Indian
freedom. V.K.K. had returned to India to claim his just reward when
the jobs were being distributed, and he was now very close to Nehru
who had become somewhat isolated from the rest of Congress. V.K.K.
was rather out of touch with Indian realities and he still believed that
it would be possible for the British to hand over to a united, and of
course Congress-dominated, India. If this was to be achieved, lie knew
the splitting of the Indian Army must be avoided at all costs, and he
had told Nehru so. But the advice came too late. The idea of splitting
the army had been accepted, at least in principle, even if Mountbatten
still seemed to believe that it might be possible to hand over an un-
divided army to the proposed federal government if the British govern-
ment was prepared to back his new plan.

When Nehru arrived, Mountbatten gave V. P. Menon permission
to talk to him about dominion status — to which Patel had already
agreed — but not about the plan which Ismay had taken to London.
The next day, 9 May, there was a general discussion at which the vice-
roy encouraged Mcnon to outline to Nehru his own scheme for the
transfer of power to two central governments, one for Pakistan and
one for Hindustan, each with an interim constitution based upon the
old India Act of 1935. Nehru found the scheme appealing, though he
made a show of not altogether liking the idea of dominion status on
the grounds that it still retained overtones of dependence. But lie was
by now determined that even dominion status should not stand in the
way of India’s freedom, and in any case, after independence, a free
India could easily decide to leave the Commonwealth if she wanted to.
Such questions, though important perhaps to the British government,
did not carry the same weight with Nehru or Patel. Having accepted

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

162

partition it was not difficult to swallow dominion status, especially as
it could be regurgitated later on.

Mountbatten, however, seemed to have been hypnotized by domin-
ion status into underestimating the value of Menon’s opinion on the
other plan that Ismay was now persuading the British government in
London to accept. After the 9 May discussion with Nehru, Mount-
batten had it announced that there would be a meeting on 17 May of
all the important Indian leaders — Nehru, Patel, Jinnah, Liaquat Ali,
and Baldev Singh — in order that the viceroy might present to them a
new plan for the transfer of power. This plan, the one Ismay had taken
to London, had now been accepted by the British government, though
with some modifications and misgivings and only on the strength of
Mountbattcn’s assurance that the plan would be acceptable to the Indian
leaders.

On 10 May, however, Mountbatten suddenly decided to see what
effect the draft plan would have on Nehru, to try a dummy run before
the meeting planned for the following week. Within half an hour,
Mountbatten was forced to face the fact that he had completely mis-
judged the reaction his plan might bring from Indian leaders. Nehru
was blunt — the draft was totally unacceptable. It would, he wrote next
morning in a memorandum to the viceroy, ‘invite the Balkanization
of India’ and ‘provoke certain civil conflict’. He also condemned the
plan as likely to ‘endanger relations between Britain and India’. This
was undoubtedly serious — for the viceroy. Ismay in London had con-
vinced Attlee that the plan he had brought with him was workable
because it would be acceptable to the Indian Leaders. Now one of them
had shown that it was not.

Fortunately, there was at least one thing on the credit side — the plan
had not yet been made public. If it had been, the trust Mountbatten
had so carefully built up would have dissolved in rancour and sus-
picion. Mountbatten had been saved from an error which would not
only have been catastrophic for him personally but also for India.
Nehru was in fact right; the plan was an open invitation to the princes,
the private armies, and the Suhrawardys to go ahead with their own
private plans. The Mountbatten scheme of federation would not have
led to simple division but to dangerous and chaotic fragmentation. All
that had really emerged from the careful planning of Mountbatten
and his staff was the fact that fundamentally none of them understood

THE VICTORY 163

the situation in Lidia any better than their predecessors or the
politicians back in Britain.

Mountbatten fortunately had one great quality — his resilience. He
was like a rubber ball that, sharply kicked, only bounces higher, and
he was not the man to waste time over analysing his mistakes. Being
entirely empirical in his approach, he was able after only a short pause
to begin searching for a way out of what might well have been a
disastrous situation. Luckily, an alternative scheme was already in
existence. He had encouraged V. P. Mcnon to explain it to Nehru only
the day before. Nehru was called back and asked if Congress would
accept a new draft plan based on the Menon scheme and incorporating
Nehru’s own criticisms. Nehru replied — rightly, for he was not in
any position to do so — that he could not speak for Congress. Not, he
added, without first seeing a revised draft. Since Nehru was leaving
that evening for Delhi, it did not seem possible to produce anything
for him before he left; but with only a few days to go before the much
publicized meeting at which the viceroy was supposed to present a new
plan to the Indian leaders, the utmost speed was necessary. Mcnon was
instructed to get his scheme in writing before Nehru left Simla.

Meanwhile, the viceroy instructed his PRO, Alan Campbcll-
Johnson, to cook up some reasonable-sounding excuse and issue a
communique announcing that the meeting had been postponed.
Mountbatten then cabled Attlee that the plan the government had
accepted would have to be abandoned and another one, now, in pre-
paration, substituted for it.

Mcnon produced his draft on time, and has since been praised for, as
one writer put it, taking ‘exactly four hours to draw up a plan which
was to change the face of India and the world’. This is by no means the
case, of course, for Mcnon had had his plan ready to produce ever since
he received from Ismay the draft of what was later to form the basis of
Mountbattcn’s scheme, and he had even discussed it in outline with
Patel. He already knew that his scheme was acceptable to Patel and if
there were to be any opposition from Nehru, Patel could soon over-
come it. As it happened, Nehru was in any case prepared to accept
partition and, though he might quibble on details, he would certainly
not object to the broad principle.

Campbcll-Johnson meanwhile issued an unconvincing communique :
Owing to the imminence of the Parliamentary recess in London, it

M

164 the LAST YEARS OP BRITISH INDIA

said, the meeting of 17 May was postponed until 2 June. No one was
deceived by this specious excuse.

Mountbatten was now faced with a mystified and angry Attlee.
Cables came from London demanding explanations. Ismay, too, who
had used all his powers of persuasion to get the original plan accepted,
complained that he had not the remotest idea what was going on. One
cable from Attlee demanded the viceroy’s immediate presence in
London so that he could explain his behaviour in person. For a while,
Mountbatten was not sure whether to go or whether to stand on his
dignity and threaten to resign if he did not receive what would be in
effect a vote of confidence. On reflection, however, he realized his
responsibilities to the government which had appointed him, and on
14 May he cabled Attlee that he would fly to London on the 18th.
When he left Delhi, Mountbatten took Menon with him. It was a
wise move. Menon was a solid and experienced civil servant — a wise
man in a den of not particularly daring Daniels. His sober and intelli-
gent approach was just what was needed to convince Attlee. It suc-
ceeded, though Attlee’s confidence in Mountbatten’s judgement was
somewhat eroded. But Mountbatten was able to convince the prime
minister that the new plan represented, reasonably accurately, the views
of the nationalist leaders and that it actually could be carried out
despite the shortness of time. On Mountbatten’s instructions, Ismay
had already suggested that the date for the transfer of power should be
moved forward, and Attlee had also been advised by other sources that
the June 1948 date was unsatisfactory on purely administrative grounds.
As far as the problems of the Indian Army were concerned, Auchinleck
had been unmanned by the instructions given to him to prepare for its
division and his advice was of little value; in actual fact, he was almost
completely ignored by both the British government and the viceroy.
He plodded on with the thankless and valuable task of preparing for
the operation, but though as a good soldier his mind was in his task,
his heart was not, and he seemed mainly worried over the difficulty of
protecting British fives — which were not in fact in danger.

During the discussions in London, one date now seemed to meet
with general if somewhat dismayed agreement — 15 August, barely
two-and-a-half months ahead. Such momentous and unparalleled
haste appeared to savour of panic, and panic certainly played its part.
But it was not the panic of men unhinged by fear. A large body of

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I65

evidence had now reached the government’s hands from all manner of
sources, including the Intelligence services which had been producing
valuable information on the attitudes of Indian leaders outside Con-
gress and the League. The foundations of British India had been built
upon sand, the sand of a people’s consent. That consent was now
trickling away, and the walls of the imperial edifice — so solid-seeming
in the past — were crumbling. The British, however, who had neither
the strength nor the inclination to bolster them up, seemed in danger
of being crushed when they fell. Perhaps, the government thought
once again, shock tactics might inspire the Indians themselves to carry
out repairs.

7 Moments of Truth

Between the viceroy’s return from London on 3 1 May and his meeting
with the Indian leaders two days later, contradictory statements and
blustering appeals from all sides set up a smokescreen which concealed
the fact that Congress and the League had actually accepted the in-
evitable partition of the country.

Jimiah declared that he was immovably opposed to the partition of
Bengal and the Punjab, though in fact Muslim League leaders had
already acknowledged to themselves that if Pakistan were to be
achieved at all this concession would probably have to be made, and
Jinnah had already said ‘better a moth-eaten Pakistan’ than no Pakistan
at all. But the League felt that pressure must be kept up, just in case
the viceroy was to return from London with some other plan. Jinnah
had to preserve an unyielding fa$adc until the very last moment, and,
to show Congress that he was still belligerent, he put forward an
entirely new demand for a corridor through Hindu India, coimccting
what would be the two halves of Pakistan. No one, least of all Jinnah,
took the demand seriously — but it helped to keep the pot boiling.

Gandhi, too, was still pretending that Congress would resist partition
even at the risk of that very violence he was working so hard — and with
considerable local success — to restrain. ‘Even if the whole of India
bums,’ he said at his prayer-meeting on 31 May, ‘we shall not concede
Pakistan, even if the Muslims demanded it at the point of the sword.’

Why did Gandhi utter such inflammatory sentiments at such a late

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

1 66

date, especially when he had already in fact agreed to partition at a
meeting of the Congress Working Committee when Patel and Nehru
announced their own acceptance? At that meeting, Gandhi, who had
returned from Noakhali in order to attend, complained that no one
had told him of the changed attitude of the Congress leadership towards
partition. Nehru replied that Gandhi had been kept constantly in the
picture about what was going on. Gandhi denied this, and Nehru then
remarked that Noakhali was far away and, though he may not have
sent Gandhi full details, at least he had informed him of the broad
outlines. It seems clear that Gandhi really had been kept in the dark, in
case he might still try to persuade Congress not to accept their leaders*
decision. But he was not in fact prepared for a showdown and con-
tented himself with saying that Congress must honour decisions and
commitments made by its leaders. Why then did Gandhi later insist,
in public that partition was unacceptable, even at the risk of civil war?

There is no simple, clear-cut answer. Gandhi was an extremely
complicated personality and his thoughts and actions displayed the
emotional characteristics of the fanatic mind. He was mild, yet ruth-
less when he thought it necessary to attain his ends. Like so many reli-
gious reformers, he loved Mankind but was not above hating men who
stood in his way. He could move through the countryside preaching
peace when surrounded by violence, but when he was away from the
sight of violence, he could incite men to fight. Was he now hoping in
some way to discredit those Congress leaders who had rejected him in
their hour of triumph? Or was he attempting to dissociate himself in
advance from any responsibility for Congress’s decision to accept par-
tition, a decision which would certainly come as a shock when it was
made public? Gandhi had a very astute and agile mind although he
disguised it as much as possible behind contradictions of thought and
action. It seems probable that, at this time, he had come to recognize
that the Indian National Congress might no longer be the ideal instru-
ment for his plan of a Hindu reformation, and that he was slowly
moving towards the possibility of some new political alignment. There
is no doubt that he had had a number of discussions with orthodox
Hindu politicians, one of whom — after Gandhi had been assassinated —
told the author of this book that die Mahatma had said diat, though he
was against partition in principle, it might well be the only way of
lessening communal tensions to such a level as would permit him to get

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167

on with his work of reform, but that nevertheless he would still figlit
it as hard as he could. After independence, the orthodox Hindu political
parties were to attack Gandhi violently for having played a double game,
and it was such attacks which led fuially, though indirectly, to his
assassination by a Hindu extremist in January 1948. It now seems sure
that Gandhi was playing some sort of double game, but it has proved
impossible to fmd out with any certainty just what the game was.
Gandhi is dead, and so is the Hindu leader who, a year before his death,
‘revealed’ his version of the story to the author. Such ‘evidence’ as has
emerged since the event has come from untrustworthy sources. But it
does seem that, if Congress had moved away from Gandhi, Gandhi
was also moving away from Congress as the pettiness of its leaders’
ambitions came to light and they fought over India for what they could
get out of it. If Gandhi had lived, it is possible that he would completely
and irrevocably have broken with Congress and formed a new political
party which would more accurately have expressed his peculiar views.
Such speculation, however, is not of much profit except to his heirs.
But there is no question that, by June 1947, Gandhi’s position was to
say the least equivocal.

The position of the minority leaders, however, was not. The Sikhs
in particular were spoiling for a fight and were letting the whole world
know it — the whole world, that is, except the viceroy and the leaders
of Congress and the League. Jinnah probably did not care, while Nehru
and Patel were not particularly interested.

As the viceroy’s meeting with the Indian leaders approached,
Mountbattcn for some reason remained worried that Gandhi might
upset any arrangement arrived at for partition. There was, however,
really nothing to worry about on that score. On 2 June, the meeting
convened. It was an odd meeting, devoid of drama or any sense of the
magnitude of the occasion. Those present were Nehru, Patel, Kripalani
(the Congress president), Jinnah, Liaquat Ali, Sardar Nish tar, and
Baldcv Singh. Mountbattcn made a last appeal for acceptance of the
Cabinet Mission plan in its original form, but this was only a formality
and was treated as such. Then the viceroy announced the Britisli
government’s new proposals. For the first time, everyone was in agree-
ment. Perhaps there might have been a quibble or two about details,
but the viceroy was able to handle them. The only danger was that, on
reflection, Congress or the League might decide to stand out for

J68 THB LAST YEARS OP BRITISH INDIA

impossible concessions. But even Jinnah’s refusal to commit himself
without consulting his working committee was merely a gesture.
When the viceroy saw Jinnah again at n p.m. the same evening, the
League leader expressed a general agreement, tempered with only one
or two points of argument. ‘His [Jinnah’s] delight,’ Mountbatten
reported to London, ‘was unconcealed.’ And why not? The long
campaign was virtually over. There would be no Hindu government
of an undivided India. Jinnah could afford to relax his rigidity for a
moment and show ‘delight’.

Next day, the plan was officially published. It was mainly concerned
with the way in which inhabitants of the so-called ‘Pakistan provinces’
could express their opinion on whether they wanted a new constituent
assembly or were content with the present one. This was a roundabout
way of saying that the provinces were to be asked whether they wished
to join Pakistan or not. The method of tapping opinion was to vary in
the different provinces. In Sind, Bengal, and the Punjab, the choice was
to be made by the members of the provincial legislative assemblies, but
in the two latter provinces the assemblies were to meet in two separate
parts — one representing the Muslim-majority districts and the other
the rest of the province — and to vote separately. If each part then
decided that it wished to remain united with the other, the assembly as
a whole was to be asked to vote upon whether it wished to join
Pakistan or India. If, however, either part voted in favour of division
from the other, then it would be assumed that division should for the
time being be drawn between the Muslim and non Muslim-majority
districts. The viceroy would thereafter appoint a boundary commission
to arrive at a final decision.

If Bengal decided in favour of dividing itself, a referendum would
then have to be held in the Sylhet district of the province of Assam —
the only Muslim-majority district in that province — to find out
whether its inhabitants wanted to join their Muslim brethren in what
would be East Bengal. A method also had to be devised for voting in
British Baluchistan, which had never had an elected government, and
in which there were no electoral registers.

The North-West Frontier Province, where a Congress government
still held office, presented a different problem. There, a legislative
assembly vote would be unlikely to reflect the real views of the elector-
ate, and it was therefore decided that there should be a referendum of

THE VICTORY

I69

the whole electorate (which did not, incidentally, mean the whole
adult population).

The plan concluded with a statement that the British government
was prepared to hand over power before June 1948, and that it in-
tended to introduce legislation during the current session of the British
parliament to transfer power to one or two successor states at some
date in 1947. At a press conference on 4 June, the viceroy indicated —
though not officially — that the date the government had in mind was
15 August.

The actual significance of the earlier date took some time to pene-
trate the preoccupied minds of the nationalist leaders. Congress, in its
official response to the new proposals, tried to extract an assurance from
the viceroy that, if the new India were to decide to leave the Common-
wealth, Pakistan would automatically be expelled. Under private
pressures this demand was dropped. Another Congress suggestion was
that the referendum in the NWFP should offer a third choice — for the
province to become independent as ‘Pathanistan\ This was not accept-
able to the viceroy, nor was it in fact seriously meant by Congress
which had only put it forward as a sop to Dr Khan Sahib.

Jinnah, under pressure from Suhrawardy, suggested that if a refer-
endum were to be taken in Bengal, it also should include the choice of
independence. Then Bengal would afterwards presumably choose to
join Pakistan in one piece. Jinnah was not serious about his proposal
either, for he distrusted Suhrawardy and was pretty sure that an
independent Bengal, once in existence, would be unwilling to give up
its independent status.

On the whole, these demands were gestures, meaningless left-overs
from past tactics. In reality, everyone had been thrown off balance by
the fact that partition was now inevitable. Jinnah was overwhelmed by
his success. Congress, on the other hand, was crestfallen and rather
ashamed at having lost its fight for an undivided India. The ‘Sikh
Representative’, Baldcv Singh, whose community perhaps had most to
lose by partition, did not seem to realize what was happening. Not that
he counted for much, even in his own community; the real, influential
Sikh leaders were preparing to resist partition widi guns and knives,
far more decisive weapons than words, they thought, especially when
no one seemed to care very much what happened to minorities as long
as Congress and the League were satisfied.

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

170

But what about the physical problems of partition? The administra-
tion, the public services, above all, the army? The nationalist leaders,
preoccupied with the struggle to satisfy their varying ambitions, had
not thought about it, but assumed that the British no doubt had another
plan up their sleeves. They did. Each of the Indian leaders was soon
presented with a document headed ‘The Administrative Consequences
of Partition*.

The nationalist leaders now faced a moment of truth, a point in their
careers when words and threats had to give way to facts. The problem
that confronted them — of dividing in just seventy-two days the people,
the assets, and die liabilities of British India, of dissecting something
diat had grown up slowly over more than a century — came as a shock.
In a hot, crowded litdc studio at the Delhi station of All-India Radio,
the viceroy, Nehru, Jimiah, and Baldev Singh went to the microphone
to speak to the Indian people, the majority of whom were not listening
and would not have understood even if they had been. The conse-
quences of the message, however, were soon to be brought home to
them with fire and sword. But at that moment, no one cared, just as
no one had really cared before — except Gandhi, still on his mission of
peace. At least one minority had won everything it had hoped for. The
leaders of the Muslim League and the leaders of Congress had won, in
one case not all they had hoped for, but in the final analysis more than
either had expected. Now they were prepared to be magnanimous
towards the innocent. Jinnah, in his broadcast, asked the NWFP
League to call off its ‘civil disobedience movement’, and it was aban-
doned inunediately as was the similar campaign in Assam. Baldev
Singh’s speech was as colourless as his personality. Only Nehru tried
to rise to the immensity of the occasion, to the terrible grandeur of the
end of an empire and the beginning of a new era for India and her
people. ‘We are little men,’ he said, ‘serving great causes, but because
that cause is great something of that greatness falls upon us.’ There
remained only a few weeks in which to show whether he was right or
wrong.

Certainly it seemed for a while that some of the greatness had rubbed
off on the nationalist leaders. Jinnah refused to countenance the extrem-
ism of some League members who demanded that he should not
accept partition of the Punjab and Bengal, and in this he had the
majority of the League behind him. Like Congress, they saw diat this

THE VICTORY

171

was not the time for outrageous demands. For them, too, the perquis-
ites of power were within reach. By 400 votes to 8, the Council of the
Muslim League authorized Jinnah ‘to accept the fundamental principles
of the plan as a compromise’.

The All-India Congress Committee passed a resolution of accept-
ance, too — free for once from ambiguous qualifications — by 157 votes
to 29, with 32 abstentions mainly by orthodox Hindus. The committee
did, of course, reassert its faith in Indian unity, and several speakers
prophesied that partition would only be temporary and in a short while
India would be once again united. Gandhi recommended, despite all
his public objections, that the committee accept the plan, though he
too hinted that he thought Pakistan could not last and would soon want
to rejoin India.

In other quarters, there was opposition to the plan, but it came from
men who were not in a position to alter any political decision. Their day
was yet to come, and they would try to prove their point with blood.
The orthodox Hindu parties condemned the plan. So too did ‘national-
ist’ Muslim members of Congress, headed by Maulana Azad. The
communists reserved their attacks for the British. Following a lead from
Moscow, they condemned partition as an extension of the old British
policy of ‘divide and rule’ and claimed that dominion status was a
sinister device for carrying it out — though they did not explain how.
But they were right in thinking that dominion status was important.
It was now becoming clear why so much effort has been expended by
the viceroy on persuading both Congress and the League (though
Jinnah was already convinced) that they must accept dominion status.
It was only, Mountbattcn insisted to the Indian leaders, a device for
ensuring the smooth transfer of power. Outside Lidia, it was not viewed
in that way at all, but rather as a triumph of British statesmanship and
a proof that, as the British were still clever enough to transform a
dependent empire into an interdependent commonwealth, they could
by no means be written off the world stage. However, the real reason
for Britain’s insistence that both the new successor states should be
dominions had nothing at all to do with India, or with the Common-
wealth for that matter. It was not so much designed to ensure the
smooth transfer of power to India as to guarantee the approval of all
political parties in Britain. Instead of liquidating an empire — a negative
achievement — the Labour government appeared to be creating a new

172 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

dynamic Commonwealth, admirably adjusted to a changed world.
There was also a rather more pertinent virtue, for the new plan ap-
peared to fulfil two of the main conditions enshrined in the Cripps offer
of 1942 to which all parties had given their pledge of support ; that there
should be agreement between the major Indian political groups, and
that there should be a period of dominion status. This was confirmed,
though with great caution and many reservations, by Winston
Churchill in a statement on behalf of the Conservative opposition.

There was another proposal also designed to neutralize opposition
in Britain. This was that both the new dominions should have the same
governor-general, who would act as a sort of super, though constitu-
tional, ruler. In theory, the idea was brilliant, and it was felt that it
would certainly appeal to those who still believed the Labour party
was forcing Britain to leave India in an undignified and panic-stricken
shuffle. It is not quite clear just where the idea originated, although it
was certainly not with the viceroy, but the suggestion was included in
the draft that Ismay had taken to London on 18 May. Congress, which
at diis stage was prepared to agree to anything as long as it got in-
dependence, had agreed to have Mountbatten as the first governor-
general of the Hindu part of India as well as to the principle of sharing
the governor-general with Pakistan. It would not really have mattered
who held this high office, since, under the new dispensation, he would
have nothing like the power that had been wielded by the viceroy of
British India. There is no doubt that the invitation to Mountbatten was
made almost entirely as a piece of not too costly flattery, but if Mount-
batten were to become governor-general of both the new dominions
Congress believed that his impartiality would be weighted against
Jinnah.

The idea was immediately appealing to Mountbatten, as it would
have been to anyone with a sense of romance. To be last viceroy and
first governor-general was quite a distinction. The Attlee government
in London had also welcomed the possibility, not only for its propa-
ganda value at home but for the fact that, if there was one authority
common to the two new dominions, it would probably make the
actual transfer of power easier. But the plan was no more than an
exercise in abstraction, made possible only because neither Mount-
batten, his ‘advisors’, nor the British government, seemed yet to
understand what they were actually doing. They were not involved in

THB VICTORY 173

some theoretical staff course, but concerned with a real and tremend-
ously complex situation. It looked as if no one had learned from experi-
ence. Every action seemed to be played off the cuff, and if one thing
failed, there was no time — or even inclination — to find out why ; there
was time only to substitute something else from an apparently inex-
haustible supply of alternatives. Any proper appreciation, for example,
of Jinnah’s character — and there was plenty of evidence from which to
deduce it — would have shown that the odds against his accepting any-
one other than himself, and in particular Mountbatten whom he
neither trusted nor liked, for the office of governor-general of Pakistan
were overwhelming. Even if Jinnah had been forced by expediency to
accept some super-govcmor-general, it is unlikely that he could have
stomached Mountbatten. In fact, if a super-govemor-general had been
appointed for the two dominions, the British would still have been
subject to criticism and abuse, and the suggestion which the com-
munists had already been spreading that it was a British trick to retain
power, would have gained weight. The idea was, in fact, only sup-
ported out of a mixture of political self-interest, ignorance, and personal
ambition.

When the question had been put to Jinnah, he had played for time.
Under pressure, however, he said that he would prefer two governors-
general to one, but that he felt the British should appoint a supreme
arbitrator to divide the assets between the two new dominions. He
went so far as to grant that he would be happy to sec Mountbatten in
that appointment. But he refused to put his proposal in writing, and
when Mountbatten tried to bully him into doing so he immediately
closed up. When the viceroy went to London, he was informed that in
any case such an appointment as Supreme Arbitrator would not only
be unworkable but would need special and complicated legislation
which the government was not prepared to indulge in.

On the viceroy’s return to India, efforts were made to convince
Jinnah that it would be in Pakistan’s interests to share a governor-
general with ’Hindustan’, as it was then called. But Jinnah would not
respond. The viceroy’s charm was ineffective, and it was not until
2 July that Jinnah finally informed the viceroy that the first governor-
general of Pakistan would be — Jinnah. Mountbatten, who thought it
was only Jinnah’s vanity that was at stake, still would not give up,
partly because he himself wanted to be the supcr-govcrnor-general,

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

174

but more particularly because he had once again assured Attlee that
Congress and the League would agree to such an appointment. But
all attempts, including intervention by the Nawab of Bhopal, a close
friend of Jinnah, were unsuccessful, and on 5 July, Liaquat Ali asked
the viceroy to make an official recommendation to the king that
Jinnah should be first governor-general of Pakistan. In the same letter
as contained this request, Liaquat said he hoped that Mountbatten
would stay on as governor-general of India (as Congress had now in-
sisted their dominion should be called). This hope, which was almost
immediately reiterated by Congress, was on the surface a peculiar one
to come from Liaquat Ali. It was, however, smart tactics from the
League’s point of view, because, though the Muslim leaders were not
sure that Mountbatten was trustworthy, they were absolutely con-
vinced that any Congress member who became governor-general
would not be. On the whole, they expected to be better off with a
British governor-general in India.

Jinnah’s refusal to accept a joint governor-general came as a shock
both to Mountbatten and the British government. It also presented a
new problem — should Mountbatten accept the appointment as
governor-general of India alone? His staff argued fluently that he
should, in the interests of stability; in order to persuade British officials
and Service personnel to stay on and help the new dominion; in order
to smooth the division of the Indian Army. His being there, they
added, would also help to prevent communal disorder, which had
‘improved out of all measure in the past three months as a result of His
Excellency’s presence’. This was a total and irresponsible misreading of
the facts. The only really worthwhile point made by the viceroy’s
staff was that if there were to be two native govemors-gcneral, the
Tory opposition at home might use it as an excuse to delay the passage
of the transfer of power Bill until after 15 August. There was little
foundation for thinking this, but it was in fact just possible that the
opposition might try and delay the Bill, although their strength in the
House of Commons was small and the government, if it had wished,
could simply have forced a vote and defeated them. As it happened,
the Tories at this stage — it was now 4 July and the Bill had already been
introduced — were unwilling to resist the passage of the necessary
legislation.

Mountbatten decided to accept the Congress leaders’ invitation and.

THE VICTORY

175

on 7 July, Ismay was sent to London in order to convince the govern-
ment and the opposition that the decision was right. The arguments
he put forward sounded sensible lo people so ignorant of the real
situation in India, and he was successful. Even Winston Churchill
agreed, in the belief that the appointment of a British governor-general
would ease communal tensions and ‘strengthen the ties of sentiment
between India and the rest of the Commonwealth’ ! He also thought
the appointment would help in preserving the interests of the princes.
In two out of these three beliefs he was to be terribly wrong.

The questions of dominion status and the appointment of a new
governor-general took up far more time and energy than their real
importance warranted, and there were many other questions of singu-
lar pettiness which also diverted the viceroy from the major tasks that
faced him. Much-needed time was given to the problems involved in
designing the flags of the two new dominions and the etiquette of
addressing Indian leaders as ‘esquire’, hi fact, there was an inescapably
surrealist air about the preoccupations of the viceroy, his staff, and the
nationalist leaders, as 15 August loomed nearer and nearer. The viceroy
had been advised by more than one responsible person that there would
be massacres in the border regions of the new dominions when partition
took place. Lieutenant-General Tuker, the military commander who
was C-in-C of Eastern Command — an area which included Calcutta
and the districts that were to be divided in Bengal — liad submitted a
plan for the division of the army and its redisposition into areas which
were likely to need it, as early as the spring of 1946. His was a detailed
and practicable plan, but it was pigeon-holed by Auchinleck who was
then still trying to keep the army undivided. As late as June 1947. k
was again rejected, apparently on the grounds that the nationalist
leaders would find it unacceptable. Mountbattcn did not scein to be
worried by the possibility of trouble in the Punjab and Bengal. He was
convinced that at the first sign of disorder, lie would be able to crush it
by using aircraft and tanks. According to the posthumously published
and very carefully edited memoirs of Maulana Azad, the viceroy
assured him that he would take the sternest measures to suppress com-
munal violence as soon as it appeared. Unfortunately, Azad s memoirs
are not trustworthy, though there is evidence from other sources which
seems to confirm that the viceroy thought he could cope with any dis-
turbances which might take place.

176 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

If AzacTs statement is true, then Mountbatten gave his assurance of
stem measures at the first sign of trouble at a time when it was already
comparatively common knowledge that a number of people — quite
apart from the Sikhs, who were openly drilling and practising with
weapons — were planning violence. Can it reasonably be assumed that
this was not, however, common knowledge as far as the viceroy was
concerned? There is some evidence that the Criminal Intelligence
Department and other Intelligence agencies of the government of
India were in a state of collapse. Many agents were now worried about
what would happen to them when the new governments took office,
and feared that they might soon suffer for having spied on the national-
ists; they had not received any assurance that their names and the
Intelligence files would not be handed over to Britain’s successors.
There was, of course, no likelihood of this happening, but it is
in the nature of things that a spy should be suspicious even of his
employers.

Fairly detailed information about possible trouble was reaching
Delhi, but it seems that no proper evaluation was being made and the
viceroy consequently was not fully aware of the potential explosiveness
of the situation. At the same time, Mountbatten does not seem to have
treated the possibilities with great seriousness. His idea of using air-
craft to break up crowds of rioters was all very well in the countryside,
but not of much use in the rabbit-warrens of the towns. In any case,
there were not enough aircraft in India to handle a serious outbreak, and
no real attempt was made to reinforce fighter squadrons on the off
chance that they might be needed.

Basically, however, the attitude of both the viceroy and the major
Indian political leaders was the same. None of them believed that
major violence would break out. They wanted to believe that partition
would solve die communal problem and that, once it took place,
reason would prevail. In the case of the Congress leaders, this was the
sole public justification for accepting partition at all; it was supposed to
settle the communal problem and remove the root cause of disorder.
All sides, then, turned away from the possibility of violence and chose
to ignore it. The only adequate precautions that could have been taken
— redisposition of the army into known trouble spots before the date
of partition — were not taken for purely political reasons. But these
reasons were reinforced by a basic unwillingness to believe, in spite of

THB VICTORY

177

all the evidence, that there would be major disorders in the Punjab and
probably in Bengal as well, when partition came.

The main trouble was that there was no time to think of everything.
No time to explore every angle of a frightening and complex situation.
Consequently, some things had to be ignored. Unfortunately, one of
these was the risk of violence. Why, in fact, was so little time allowed,
and who decided to bring the date of the transfer of power forward by
nearly a year? It has been suggested that the decision was made by
Lord Mountbatten himself and forced upon the British government
by his public announcement on 4 June. But this suggestion once again
overrates his authority. The viceroy, however dynamic and powerful
a figure, was still the agent of the British government and his area of
independent decision was circumscribed. Once the cabinet in London
had accepted the thesis that June 1948 was too late a date — because the
administrative services would be unable to function long before then —
the idea of getting the job over as quickly as possible had an immediate
appeal. All the more so because Attlee was firmly convinced that the
only way to arrive at a workable solution without having to contend
with the organic procrastination of Indian politicians, was to keep them
in a state of shock. Only in this way, he and many others believed,
could the Indian leaders be forced to face reality. Above all, the govern-
ment had decided that India must have no grounds for complaints
against the British. The aim now was to make friends of the two new
dominions, keep them in the Commonwealth, and protect British
investments and business undertakings in both India and Pakistan.
Every action henceforth was to be subject to the criteria of political
expediency; under the circumstances there was really no alternative.
There seems little doubt that the date of 15 August had been discussed
during the viceroy’s visit to London. All were agreed that June 1948
was now out of the question and that even December 1947 was prob-
ably too late, and some date had to be announced publicly.

The transfer of power was not a simple legislative act, arrived at and
put into practice in normal circumstances. It had to be carried out like
a military operation. No commander fights without the risk of
casualties; he only tries to minimize them. Mountbatten s instructions
were to succeed — at the least cost. The hundreds of thousands killed
later in the Punjab can only partly be blamed on faulty Intelligence and
tactical errors. They were the legacy, not of Mountbatten, but of the

j78 the last years of British India

nature and the shortcomings of nearly a hundred years of British rule
and of opposition to British rule.

There is no doubt that Mountbatten tackled the awesome problems
of dividing the assets of the Indian empire with a speed and brilliance
which it is difficult to believe would have been exercised by any other
man. Mountbatten defined his own part as that of ‘the mechanic who
keeps the car running but I do not actually sit in the driving scat and
turn the wheel’. In fact he did, though there were also any number of
back-seat drivers, and his journey was not on smooth, well-known
roads but over difficult and broken terrain. He was the force behind
the organization of partition, maintaining the sense of urgency and the
need for decision. A calendar with the days in enormous red and black
letters reminded his staff of the passing of time as the deadline moved
towards them. Mountbattcn’s was a tremendous achievement, and the
tragedy that hedged it should not be allowed to diminish its reality.
The tragedy could have been worse, and if the transfer had been de-
layed— as some critics think it should have been — it would hardly have
been less.

The machinery set up to prepare for partition was basically simple.
At the apex there was a Partition Committee with Lord Mountbatten
as chairman, Patel and Rajendra Prasad (later India’s first president)
representing Congress, and Liaquat Ali and Sardar Nishtar, the League.
Baldcv Singh was excluded after Jinnah had objected that he would be
too pro-Congress. The committee’s function was to co-ordinate —
through a steering committee of two high officials, Chaudri Muham-
mad Ali, a Muslim, and H. M. Patel, a Hindu — the work of a large
number of expert committees and sub-committees dealing with every-
thing from the division of the armed forces, through railways and
telegraphs, to the duplication of files.

The Armed Forces Committee included a British chairman and a
number of British officers. Their task was both dangerous and difficult,
for there was no easy way to divide army units. Until shortly after the
Mutiny of 1857, entire regiments had been either Hindu or Muslim,
but units were then mixed to strike a balance between the two religions,
so that each might act as a restraint upon the other. Because of this,
units would now have to be broken up completely and then re-
assembled, although while this was being done it was arranged that
some central administrative control would remain. At the same time,

THE VICTORY 179

commanders-in-chief of the two new dominions’ armies were to be
appointed so that they and their headquarters administration would
be ready to take over. In the interim, the supreme commander was to
be the then C-in-C of undivided India, Field-Marshal Auchinleck, who
was to be subordinate to a Joint Defence Council. He was to have no
operational control over the new armies, except in the case of units in
transit between the two dominions, and his only function was to over-
see the proper division of men and materials. It was hoped that joint
control would come to an end after i April 1948.

The division of the armed forces was to take place in two stages. The
first was to consist of a rather rough-and-ready separation on a purely
communal basis, followed by the immediate concentration of Muslim-
majority units in what was to be Pakistan and of other units in the rest
of the country. The second stage was to cover the voluntary transfer of
individuals who wished to join units in either Pakistan or India. The
first stage was carried through with unexpected smoothness. Before the
end of June 1947, final decisions had been reached on the Navy and on
some units of the Army.

The Civil Services also had to be divided, and both European and
Indian members were asked to stay on and help with necessary recon-
struction after the transfer of power. The British government guaran-
teed compensation and pensions, graded according to length of service,
to British officers who would be deprived of their careers.

By the end of June, both Bengal and the Punjab had decided in
favour of internal partition. In Bengal, the decision was reached in an
atmosphere comparatively free from communal disorder, though
tension was only just concealed below the surface. In the Punjab, how-
ever, there was a daily quota of bomb explosions, fire-raising and
murders in Lahore, the provincial capital, and Amritsar, the sacred
city of the Sikhs. The Muslim-majority areas had voted against the
division of the Punjab, as was to be expected, but the non-Muslim
areas voted in favour. The consequence of these votes was that the
central Partition Committee was replaced by a Partition Council, the
only change being that Jinnah took over from Sardar Nishtar. Parti-
tion Councils were also set up in the Punjab and Bengal and, in the
latter, the Muslim League government was enlarged to include Hindu
ministers from the western districts. In Sind, the legislative assembly
voted to join Pakistan, a foregone conclusion, and in Baluchistan a

N

l80 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

council of tribal chiefs unanimously voted to do the same. In the
Sylhet district of Assam, the referendum resulted in a majority vote in
favour of Pakistan. From an organizational point of view, everything
seemed to be running smoothly.

But there still remained the North-West Frontier Province where a
Congress ministry was still in office. The referendum was very carefully
organized by a team of forty British officers with experience of the
Frontier, under a Referendum Commissioner who was also English.
The choice before the electors was either to join Pakistan or India;
but actually there was no choice. For simple geographical reasons, the
province could not join Congress India, and for religious reasons, the
people would not join Hindu India. The verdict was a foregone con-
clusion, and the population would obviously vote for Pakistan. Never-
theless, the Red Shirt movement was still angling for the alternatives
to be changed to Pakistan or Pathanistan. Even Gandhi thought this a
good idea. Abdul Ghaffar Khan had asked Jinnah to agree to the
NWFP declaring itself independent on the understanding that it would
join Pakistan if the new Pakistani constitution was acceptable; he told
Jinnah that he and his followers would even be prepared to send dele-
gates to the Pakistan constituent assembly, on condition that they
would be able to withdraw if they wanted to. To this ‘insidious and
spurious’ demand, Jinnah would not listen, especially as he knew that
Muslim League influence had grown immensely in the NWFP after
the partition plan had been announced. The referendum passed off
peacefully in the presence of some 15,000 troops moved in for the
occasion. The result was 289,224 votes in favour of joining Pakistan
and 2,874 hi favour of India. The Red Shirts, who had called on their
followers to boycott the referendum, had failed, as had the Afghan
government which, in the hope of gaining territory for itself, had
strongly supported — and still does today — the Pathanistan movement.

It had even sent an official Note to the British government in which it
claimed that all inhabitants of India west of the river Indus were really
Afghans and should be allowed to decide whether they wanted to join
Afghanistan. The Note was not even acknowledged.

Wliile this and many more activities in preparation for independence
were taking their sometimes smooth, sometimes difficult course, the
Labour government in London was busy piloting the Indian Independ-
ence Bill through the British parliament. The Bill’s twenty clauses

THB VICTORY l8l

passed their Third Reading without a division on 15 July, and on the
same day the Bill was introduced in the House of Lords. Three days
later, in the company of such other measures as the South Metropolitan
Gas Bill and the Felixstowe Pier Bill, it received the royal assent.
‘Never before,’ said The Times leader-writer, ‘in the long annals of the
Parliament of Westminster, has a measure of this profound significance
been afforded a passage at once so rapid and so smooth.’

The occasion had been embellished with much empty rhetoric, but
there was real irony behind prime minister Attlee s somewhat ingenu-
ous claim that the Bill was ‘not the abdication but the fulfilment of
Britain’s mission in India, a sign of strength, and the vitality of the
British Commonwealth’.

8 A Crucible for Chaplets

Among the problems that faced the British as the day of the transfer of
power came nearer was one of which they seem to have expressly
washed their hands; that of the princely states. It had been made quite
clear that when British rule ended, paramountcy would lapse too and
all the princely states would consequently be at least legally indepen-
dent. Most of them were small, some only a few acres, and completely
surrounded by British India, and the Congress attitude towards diem
had been hardening since 1937 when popular governments had taken
office in the provinces. In 1938, Gandhi himself had made Congress
policy plain and had warned the princes that they would be wise to
cultivate friendly relations with an organization [Congress] that bids
fair in the future, not very distant, to replace the Paramount Power —
let us hope, by friendly arrangement'. Congress had established an
All-India States Peoples’ Conference and had carried out campaigns in
some of the states, but they had found themselves roughly handled, and
attacked the states, even such well-run ones as Mysore, as ‘sinks of
reaction and incompetence . . . propped up and artificially maintained
by British Imperialism’.

In 1947, the princes no doubt remembered Pandit Nehru s words of
1939: ‘We recognize no such treaties [between the states and the
Crown] and wc shall in no event accept them. . . . The only paramount
power that we recognize is the will of the people. It was unlikely that

? 7 r -j

1 82 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

even the larger states could now manage to retain their independence,
save perhaps those who for reasons of geography might be able to form
an alliance amongst themselves. The states had survived because the
British had seen them as the only partners, however junior, that they
could really trust. The British had pledged themselves, in the words of
Queen Victoria in 1858, to ‘respect the rights, dignity and honour of
the native Princes as our own’. As long as the British remained in
power, princely self-interest drew them together, but now the rights
and the dignity if not the honour of the British were passing from
India and the future of the princes was being returned to their own
rather inexperienced keeping. The British could not legally help them,
except in refusing to transfer paramountcy, because by the various
treaties between the Crown and the individual princely states, no
British or British-Indian authority could make laws for them. The
British parliament had in fact no right whatsoever to decide the future
of the states, for their inhabitants were not British subjects.

Nevertheless, the government of India had become more complex
since 1858 as the mechanics of the modem world came to India through
railways, currency, post and telegraph, and so on. The states had be-
come much more bound up with British India. The Government of
India Act of 1935 had sought to bring them politically into the govern-
ment of the whole of India by establishing a federal form of adminis-
tration, but negotiations for bringing this about had been interrupted
by the outbreak of war in 1939. Because of this, the only official
relationship between the government of India and the princely states
was through the viceroy as Crown Representative, and it was handled
by the Political Department in New Delhi. In 1921, under British
pressure, the princes had formed themselves into a Chamber of Princes
where it was hoped they would evolve common policies for all the
states. But many of them, including the largest, Hyderabad, had re-
fused to join and the chamber became in fact almost entirely a mouth-
piece for the medium-sized states, the mass of the smaller ones having
very little representation; 127 of them had only twelve members in
the chamber. This had not been of much consequence while the British
were still in power, but now that independence was at hand, the states
presented a serious problem to Britain’s successors. One thing was
certain — no popular government could tolerate islands of mediaevalism
in its midst.

THE VICTORY i83

From 1937 onwards, the Political Department had tried to induce the
princes to reform their administrations and to allow at least some
measure of popular government, not too unlike that introduced into
British India. If the princes agreed, it was pointed out, their position
would be much stronger when they came to negotiate with the suc-
cessors of the British. For two reasons this advice was not taken.
Firstly, the British stuck to the legal letter of their treaties with the
states and refused to ‘coerce’ the princes into carrying out their sugges-
tions. Secondly, the princes received the advice as an affront to their
dignity, even the rulers of the smaller states being unwilling to give up
any of their autocratic power. There is no doubt that, despite the
treaties, the British could easily have forced the princes to make changes
in their administration, but it can only be assumed that they did not
really wish to. At one time during the war, the princes had begun to
consider some sort of alliance amongst themselves, but this was geo-
graphically impossible except in the case of a few of the larger states.
In 1942, the chancellor of the Chamber of Princes had asked for an
assurance from the Cripps Mission that they [the princes] should have
the right to form a union of their own, with full sovereign status . He
was not given an official assurance, though privately he was told that
such a scheme might be considered by the British government. A
glance at a map of India will instantly show that such a union would
not have worked because of the large tracts of non-state territory
separating the lands of the members of any union that might have
been formed.

Various plans had been suggested while independence was under
discussion, including one that Britain should retain paramountcy over
certain states after the transfer of power. This, however, was quite
impossible, if only on the grounds that it would appear as if Britain
was trying to hang on to a foothold in India, hoping to keep her weak
and divided. Such a solution would only have led to friction and pos-
sibly even to war between the British-protected states and the successor
governments of India and Pakistan. All that Britain could do was
strengthen the position of the states when the time came for them to
negotiate with her successors, and give them some protection by not
transferring paramountcy automatically to the successor governments.
Congress, in whose dominion the majority of the princely states would
lie, thought this attitude was wrong and that it would inevitably lead

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

184

to the Balkanization of the country. Congress maintained, with perfect
justice, that Britain's relations with the states were a corollary of her
occupation of the rest of India, and that they had no raison d'etre when
this ended. Therefore, Congress insisted, the states were part of the
structure of British rule in India and paramountcy over them should
revert to the successor authorities.

hi 1945, when it became reasonably clear that the British intended to
transfer power at some not too distant date, the princes finally woke up
to the danger that the Political Department had been warning them
about for years, hi January 1946, the then chancellor of the Chamber
of Princes, the Nawab of Bhopal, listed the objectives at which the
states should aim. These included ‘popular institutions with elected
majorities to ensure the close and effective association with the govern-
ance of the States’ — without, of course, ‘impairing the continuance
of the ruling dynasty’. But by then it was too late, though it
is doubtful whether any time after 1940 would have been early
enough.

During the negotiations over independence, the British had not
really had the time, or the inclination, to discuss in any detail how the
princes should act when power was finally transferred. All the British
government was explicit about was its refusal to hand over para-
mountcy to its successors, though the Cabinet Mission of 1946 had
made it clear that they hoped and expected that the states would join
the proposed Indian Union. The states had then been invited to nomi-
nate representatives to the new constituent assembly when it met. But
what the British thought did not really count any more. They, in the
politest way, had washed their hands of the future. It was the attitude
of Congress that mattered, and the states got a very dusty answer from
Nehru in July 1946. ‘It is inconceivable to me,’ he said, ‘that any state
will be independent and outside the limits of the Union.’ This was
taken as a hint that the states would be forced to join, if not by popular
pressure from inside then by the central government itself. In fact.
Congress was already trying to bypass the princes. It demanded that
any states’ representatives to the constituent assembly should not be
nominated by the princes but elected by their peoples.

The Muslim League’s attitude to the princely states was rather
different to Congress’s. The League could afford to be friendly, since
very few of the states lay within the proposed borders of Pakistan.

THE VICTORY

185

Jinnah had been very careful in his pronouncements on the subject and
apart from occasionally criticizing the Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir had
indicated that, while the states would always be welcome to join
Pakistan, there would be no coercion. It is possible that Jinnah was
trying to convince the princes that they would have everything to
gain by siding with the League against their common enemy, Congress.
As the majority of the princes and their subjects were Hindu, however,
an alliance with the League did not particularly appeal to them,
especially as the threat of civil war between the two communities
loomed larger. It seemed likely to the princes that they might be over-
thrown by their own subjects if they openly supported the Muslim
League. The majority of the princes, in fact, never seriously considered
the possibility of an alliance with Jinnah, and some of them were con-
spicuous in attempts to promote communal harmony. What, however,
were they to do when Congress leaders went on uttering threats against
them?

But as independence approached. Congress became more accom-
modating, and a meeting took place early in February 1947 at which
it was agreed that proposals would be worked out for states representa-
tion in the constituent assembly. Unfortunately, the princes were not
in agreement among themselves. One of them, Baroda, made his own
separate arrangement to send three representatives elected by the
State legislature, but fmally, after some argument, the representatives
of eight states— Baroda, Cochin, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Bikaner,
Rewa and Patiala — took their seats in the constituent ascmbly on 28
April 1947. By July, another 37 states, including Mysore and Gwalior,

had sent representatives to the assembly.

A large number of states, however, preferred to wait until para-
inountcy had lapsed before they negotiated their position with the
successor governments. One of these was Bhopal, whose ruler had
resigned as chancellor of the Chamber of Princes after complaining to
Mountbattcn that the British were deliberately evading their responsi-
bilities. As the Muslim prince of a Hindu state which was surrounded
by Hindu India, Bhopal felt that his personal future was to say the least
insecure, and he immediately set about trying to form in Central Lidia
a federation of states which would have some chance of independent
existence.

The princes were not without allies amongst the British. Their

jg6 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

‘kingdoms of yesterday’ had considerable appeal to the romantic
notions of the many middle-class Englishmen who had been associated
with them. A nostalgia for the past glories, a weakness for the pompous
flummery of the princes’ mediaeval courts, had blinded them to the
mediaeval irresponsibility that too often reigned behind the Arabian
Nights facade. At least one Englishman was to put up a fight on behalf
of these atavistic remnants of a bygone age. Fortunately, he did not
succeed; if he had, the massacres in the Punjab might not have been
the end of the sufferings of the innocent. This man was Sir Conrad
Corfield, head of the Political Department of the government of India.
He was determined that at least some of the princely states should be

saved from the grasping hands of Congress.

Corfield had the advantage of knowing practically everything there
was to know about the states and their relations with the Crown,
whereas Mountbatten knew little and cared less. The viceroy had
no sympathy for mediaeval autocrats and was much more concerned
about the major problems of partition. This gave Corfield his oppor-
tunity. He was determined to do everything in his power to make
things awkward for Congress when the time came for them to nego-
tiate with the princely states. In London in May 1947, when he had
conversations with the secretary of state — of which he did not inform
the viceroy either before or after — Corfield insisted that paramountcy
should not be allowed to lapse until the actual day on which power was
transferred. This would give the states an immediate advantage, for it
would allow of no agreement to accede to either of the new dominions
before they had come into existence. To this proposition the secretary
of state agreed, and Corfield returned to India in the plane that was
going out to collect Mountbatten and take him back to London on
3 1 May. The viceroy did not know of Corfield’s return, and Corfield
kept out of his way until Mountbatten left. As soon as he had gone,
Corfield gave orders that the files on the princes — which contained the
fullest details of their private and public scandals — should be destroyed,
and that all arrangements currently in existence between the states and
the government of India — concerning military stations, railways,
postal services and the like — should be cancelled immediately.

On 13 June, after the viceroy’s return to India, the matter blew up.
Congress had got wind of what was going on, since it was impossible
for the cancellation of service agreements between the states and the

THE VICTORY 187

government of India to be kept quiet. At a special meeting, Nehru
demanded an explanation from the viceroy and an inquiry into Cor-
field’s actions, which he described as irresponsible.

Corfield’s defence was simple. His actions, he said, had the approval
of the secretary of state; this was true. But he had acted without the
knowledge or the approval of the viceroy. Mountbatten made no
criticism at the meeting itself, but relations between the two men be-
came extremely cold. Corfield, however, had succeeded in destroying
documents that might have been of assistance to Congress, and had
obtained the British government’s assurance that paramountcy would
not lapse until 15 August. But he had not been completely victorious,
for both Congress and the League decided to set up a States Department
to deal with the princes, and the first shots in the struggle were soon
fired. Both the League and Congress now had a powerful ally in the
viceroy, who had been particularly offended by Corfield s actions, and
between them, they were able to defeat Corfield s scheme. He and his
associates, however, continued to advise the princes to hold out for
independence. Some, in particular Travancore and Hyderabad, took
this advice and declared publicly that they would not join either of the
new dominions. Travancore, at the very southern tip of India, hundreds
of miles away from Pakistan, even announced that it would appoint a
trade agent in the new dominion. ^Tthin the state of Hyderabad, there
was an important Indian Army base, at Secundrabad near the capital,
and some seven or eight thousand Indian troops with armour were still
stationed there. Corfield had hoped that his cancellation of agreements
would force these troops out before 15 August, when, under Congress
control, they might become a powerful argument against Hyderabad s
decision to remain independent. The ruler’s constitutional advisor, Sir
Walter Monckton, had in fact transmitted a request from the Nizam
that the troops be removed.

Corfield, with all his experience, was still not wily enough to defeat
Congress opposition when it came. Patel, perhaps the most intelligent
and cunning of the Congress leaders, took over responsibility for the
new States Department and asked V. P. Mcnon to be its first secretary
when independence came. Mcnon accepted and immediately put for-
ward a plan of campaign. This, and his actions at the time of the Mount-
batten Plan, give Mcnon every right to take his place in history as one
of the principle architects of independent India, but it is only very

j88 the last years of British india

recently that his true influence on events has come to be properly
appreciated.

Menon’s plan of campaign was deceptively simple— negotiate
immediately with the princes, but only on the three subjects, of defence,
external affairs, and communications. Of these, the most important
was defence. Most of the princes would be incapable of preserving
order in their states if there were any large-scale rioting, and a discreet
reminder of the threat of civil disorder should make them amenable.
If the rulers accepted protection as they had accepted it from the British,
this would be the first step towards a new relationship, a new para-
mo untcy exercised by Britain’s successors. The next stage was to get
Mountbatten’s co-operation. The groundwork had already been laid
by Corfield. But Mountbatten’s approach was not merely the result
of pique at being by-passed by the Political Department.

Mountbatten now knew a great deal more about the problem of the
princely states than he had done before. They had been just as much an
instrument of British rule in India as had the army and the civil service.
It was in relations with the states that the principle of ‘divide and rule*
had actually been practised. These enclaves of reactionary government
had initially been preserved as a breakwater against rebellion in those
parts of India directly controlled by the British, and the general back-
wardness, irresponsibility, and outrageous behaviour of their rulers had
been quite deliberately overlooked as a reward for their loyalty. If the
princes were left the right to independence, it would mean that the
partition of British India between Muslim and Hindu would be
aggravated by an infinitely more dangerous partition of the rest of the
country. Such partition would have no reasonable basis whatsoever.
Over three hundred of the states which were to become independent
on 15 August had an average area of less than twenty square miles
each. It was rather as if some of the suburbs of a great city were sud-
denly to become sovereign states which could and would interrupt
transport services, drains and telephone wires, if they felt like it. The
consequences would not only be ludicrous but fraught with danger.
Mountbatten’s view, now that he had come to think about it, was that
the British had created the position of the princes and it was up to them
to see that it was not a burden to their successors. In fact he realized that
the question of the princes might easily destroy the delicate balance that
had finally been reached between the claims of the Muslim League and

THE VICTORY 189

those of Congress. The problems that faced independent India were
already frightening enough. The princes might make them worse —
and, incidentally, it was more than likely that it would be the British
who would be blamed.

Mountbatten cabled the secretary of state in London, suggesting that
a clause should be inserted into the Independence Bill limiting the
powers of the princely states and automatically transferring para-
mountcy over the smaller ones to the two new dominions. The
secretary of state replied that this could not be done without altering
the government’s publicly declared policy towards the princes. Again
it was perfectly obvious that the government in London did not under-
stand the nature of the problem. Corfield had been successful in his
persuasion. The government’s attitude was partly the result of the
deference paid in Britain to ‘Law’. In the history of her connexion with
India, Britain had always sought to protect herself with treaties, even
if the other party to the treaty was only a puppet. The British had
always been reluctant to break treaties, even bad ones, and the Labour
government — trying desperately to appear respectable — was only too
willing to cling to the letter of some outdated legal agreement.

However, there was one saving ‘legality that would allow Mount-
batten to minimize the danger of states independence; this was the
Cabinet Mission’s hope in 1946 that the states would join the then-
proposed Indian Union. There was now to be no Indian Union, but
two dominions instead; this, however, did not really invalidate any-
thing. Furthermore, the princes had declared to the Cabinet Mission
that they would be willing ‘to co-operate in the new development of
India’.

Congress leaders continued to make threats against the princes.
Nehru bluntly stated that if any foreign power recognized die inde-
pendence of any state it would be taken as a hostile act. Even Gandhi
spoke up and warned the princes that if they declared independence
it would be ‘tantamount to a declaration of war against the free mil-
lions of India’. Congress, however, did not intend to leave the matter
at speeches by its leaders. The leaders of the various Congress organ-
izations in the princely states made it abundantly clear that they in-
tended to raise the people against their rulers, and they suggested at
the same time that the only way in which the princes might retain
their wealth would be to negotiate with Congress as rapidly as possible.

190 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

The Muslim League, which had so much less to lose, still radiated sweet
reasonableness.

So in fact did Sardar Patel. When the Congress States Department
was established, he publicly assured the princes that all that need be
agreed upon were the three subjects of defence, external affairs, and
communications :

*In other matters/ he said, ‘we would scrupulously respect their autonomous
existence. ... I should like to make it clear that it is not the desire of Congress
to interfere in any manner whatever with the domestic affairs of the States.
They [Congress] are no enemies of the Princely order but on the other hand
wish them and their people under their aegis all prosperity, contentment, and
happiness. Nor would it be my policy to conduct relations of the new Depart-
ment with the States in any manner which savours of domination of one over
the other; if there would be any domination it would be that of our mutual
interests and welfare/

This was an invitation for the princes to join with Congress as equal
partners in the new dispensation. What was offered, Patel implied, was
something better than the subordinate status of the old paramountcy.

On two levels — local threats and central reasonableness — the princes
were slowly being jockeyed into a decision. Nothing, however, could
be done without the approval of the Crown Representative, because
legally the princes had no relations with the Indian interim govern-
ment or with the new States Department. It was now time for Mount-
batten to exercise the right he still maintained of advising the princes.
But as long as the princes thought there was a possibility that the
British government might agree to some new form of relationship,
they would listen to Corfield’s advice and not heed the honeyed words
of Sardar Patel. Patel, however, was well aware, through informants
in the Political Department, that Corfield was doing all he could to

persuade certain of the states to form alliances and declare themselves
independent.

On 25 July, as time was running out, the viceroy called the princes to
Delhi to their last meeting with the representative of the king-emperor
— although it was in fact the first time Mountbatten had addressed the
princes in that capacity. His persuasiveness was at its height. The
weather was unusually hot even for a summer in Delhi, but the viceroy,
arrayed in full viceregal splendour, seemed only to draw strength from

THE VICTORY

191

the heat like a salamander. The princes sweated and dozed, some angry,
most resigned, as Mountbatten outlined his devastating case. Techni-
cally and legally, he said, they would all be independent after the British
had gone, but in fact they had always been a part of India, economically
and administratively. If they tried to break away altogether, the struc-
ture would dissolve in chaos, and they, he reminded them, would be
the first victims. He then produced a draft instrument of accession
which had been circulated prior to the meeting. This document called
for cession only in the three fields of defence, external affairs, and
communications. There would be no financial liabilities and no en-
croachments upon the individual autonomy or the sovereignty of the
states. He pointed out that, of course, this document applied only to
India, in which most of the states would he. Jinnah had already agreed
to negotiate separately with those few states which would he within
the borders of Pakistan. ‘My scheme,’ said the viceroy, ‘leaves you
with all practical independence you can possibly use, and makes you
free of all those subjects which you cannot possibly manage on your
own. You cannot run away from the Dominion Government which
is your neighbour any more than you can run away from subjects for
whose welfare you are responsible.’ The princes had now been ap-
prised of the Crown’s opinion as to what they should do. For years
they had looked to the British for advice — and here was the last they
were likely to get.

Behind the scenes, Congress pressure continued. For many of the
princes, the choice lay between saving their palaces, their jewels and
their dancing girls, or running the risk of being overthrown after
independence. The safeguards offered by the viceroy were in reality
rather flimsy. The British could not effectively guarantee them, and
an independent India would be able to brush them aside whenever it
chose. To accede was a gamble; not to accede would mean the certainty
of removal from their thrones. In their dilemma, the princes had no-
where else to turn. Corfield had been packed off to England by the
viceroy, and others who remained behind were too preoccupied in
intriguing with Bhopal and the Rajput states to bother with the rest.
The princes now appointed a committee to examine both the draft
instrument and a standstill agreement which would perpetuate existing
relations between the states and the rest of India. The committee
included among its members the Nawab of Bhopal and the prime

192 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

ministers of Hyderabad and Travancore, both of which had declared
their intention of remaining independent after 1 5 August.

Under Mountbattens patient persuasion, the princes began to sign
the instrument of accession until, by the time of the transfer of power,
the majority had acceded. Bhopal had been forced to give up his
attempt to form a federation of Central Indian states, primarily be-
cause of disagreements amongst the rulers themselves, and partly by
the fact that Congress agents had repeatedly reminded him of his own
dangerous position as the Muslim ruler of a predominantly Hindu
state. The Rajput states, who had hoped to attract the Rajput soldiers of
the Indian Army to join their armed forces, also at last saw reason.
There was just not enough time to prepare themselves.

But some of the princely states were determined not to accede to
Congress India if they could help it. Even after Corfield had left India,
certain members of the Political Department were still active in the
attempt to make things as difficult as possible for Congress. Legally,
of course, they had every right to advise the princes in what they
thought were their best interests. But their actions were contrary in
spirit to the intentions of the British government which, in its ignor-
ance, had not seen the dangers implicit in the lapse of paramountcy.
The men of the Political Department had been allowed to act as they
did because of the haste in which the British government decided to
transfer power; there was not time to think of everything. Fortunately,
when Mountbattcn finally became aware of what was going on, his
immense energy and determination were too much for them. It is a
sad comment on that responsibility which was so often claimed as the
keystone of Britain’s mission in India that, at the end, some English-
men— through what might be charitably described as a mistaken
sense of duty — should have run the risk of multiplying chaos and
suffering.

The viceroy had made it plain at the meeting on 25 July that states
whose frontiers marched with those of both dominions could choose
which one they wanted to accede to, and some of the Rajput states
were in this position. After the failure of the scheme for an independent
grouping of Rajput states, members of the Political Department
quickly suggested that some of them should accede to Pakistan. One
of these was the state of Jodhpur.

The Maharaja of Jodhpur was a high-living young man with expen-

THE VICTORY

193

sive tastes in women and aeroplanes. He and the ruler of another of the
states, Jaisalmer, paid a secret visit to Jinnah, who received them with
great warmth and offered to accept whatever terms they cared to
make. But Jodhpur was not altogether a fool. For the Hindu ruler of a
Hindu state — and one proud of its long history of martial defiance to
the old Mughal emperors — to accede to a Muslim dominion was to
invite trouble. After a few days, he gave in to Congress.

To all the princes’ furtive attempts to save themselves, Patel re-
sponded publicly with sweet words. He welcomed Bhopal into the
fold with the statement that ‘During the last few months it had been a
matter of great disappointment to me that your undoubted talents and
abilities were not at the country’s disposal during the critical times
through which we were passing, and I therefore particularly value [your]
assurance of co-operation and friendship.’

The Maharaja of Travancorc, in the face of demonstrations arranged
by the local Congress organization, also gave in. On the whole, it
looked as if the campaign so nearly lost had now been won. Unfortun-
ately, the exceptions were to cause trouble, and in one case at least to go
on causing it right up to the present day. Only three states were to be
awkward — Junagadh, Hyderabad, and Kashmir — but the conse-
quences of their awkwardness more than outweighed the success with
the others.

The trouble with Junagadh did not break out until after 15 August,
when it became known that the Muslim Nawab had decided to accede
to Pakistan and that Pakistan had accepted the accession. The Nawab
of Junagadh was not untypical of many of the princes. The eccen-
tricity’ of his tastes had been discreetly overlooked by the British in
payment for the loyalty of him and his like. There were so many
wicked princes in India that the record of their lives is more like an
additional volume by the Brothers Grimm than a glossary of the sort
of people one would expect to be allies of such a moral people as the
British. But as in so many things, India provided the exceptions. The
king-emperor needed tributary kings in order to enhance his glory.
He got some very queer ones, and just a few who were good and
reasonably decent rulers. On the whole, the preservation of the princes
in the amber of British power is one of the less pleasant aspects of British
rule in India. The true conditions in the states were too often concealed
behind the romantic novelists’ view of jewelled elephants, gorgeous

194 THB last years of British india

turbans, and 'age-old magic*. The princes encouraged this view, and
got on with enjoying their ‘age-old* vices.

The ruler of Junagadh was no exception. He loved to watch deliber-
ately wounded animals tom to pieces by deliberately starved hounds.
Surrounding his palace were rooms, pleasantly furnished — and each
with a servant and a telephone — for every one of his hundred or so
dogs. In fact, a dog’s life in Junagadh was infinitely superior to that of
the majority of the people. This comparatively small state of four
thousand square miles lay on the south-western coast of the Kathiawar
peninsula north of Bombay, an area of great beauty and scenic gran-
deur. Its chief seaport was some 3 50 miles away from Karachi, the new
capital of Pakistan, and it was surrounded on all sides except the sea by
states which had acceded to India. The complex of states in Kathiawar
was like some demented jigsaw. Most were tiny fragments scattered
over the peninsula. There were even bits of Junagadh embedded as
enclaves inside other states, and enclaves of other states’ territories
remained inside Junagadh. At the meeting on 25 July, the Nawab of
Junagadh had given the impression that, though he himself was a
Muslim, he would accede to India as most of the other states in Kathi-
awar had already decided to do. It was a most sensible decision, since
over 80 per cent of the 816,000 inhabitants of Junagadh were Hindu.
But the Nawab postponed the actual signing of the instrument of
accession — and then plumped for Pakistan. He even went further and
occupied two tiny states, Mangrol and Babariawad, which had decided
to accede to India in an attempt to assert their independence of him and
the ovcrlordship he claimed over them.

The Nawab’s change of attitude between 25 July and 15 August had
been brought about by Muslim League tactics similar to those which
Congress was pursuing in other states. A Muslim League agent simply
obtained the ear of the Nawab by assuring him that Congress would
kill his dogs, stop him hunting, and, generally speaking, prevent him
from enjoying his traditional pleasures, while Pakistan on the other
hand would be happy to allow him to continue in his innocuous pur-
suits and would even be prepared to help him against his own subjects
should that ever be necessary.

The other Kathiawar states, led by Nawanagar, regarding this as a
threat to peace, appealed to the new government of India and began to
mass their own state troops on the Junagadh borders. The Indian

THE VICTORY

195

government had not been officially informed of the Nawab’s accession
to Pakistan — in fact, they only learned of it from the newspapers. The
government complained to Pakistan, but got no reply. It was perfectly
obvious that Pakistan must know very well that Junagadh, for geo-
graphical reasons alone, could not actually join Pakistan, but the
Muslim League’s old policy of creating as much trouble as possible for
Congress had not been abandoned when independence came. Apart
from sending a few men to help the Nawab’s depleted police force, the
Pakistanis did nothing except sit back and enjoy the situation. The
Indian government was reluctant to walk into what was so obviously
a trap. Soft words had been issuing from Sardar Patel’s lips. The
princes, though still slightly uneasy, had been on the verge of breathing
again, and a delicate relationship might very easily be upset if one of
their number was ‘coerced’. There was also a possibility that Pakistan
might object. A request to Liaquat Ah Khan to allow the people of
Junagadh to decide for themselves received no reply.

While continually repeating its desire for an amicable solution, the
Indian government was finally forced to act. If it had not done so, the
rest of the Kathiawar states might have gained the impression that
India was unable or unwilling to protect them. Indian Army troops
were sent to the Junagadh borders and all co mm uni cations with the
state, as well as supplies of coal and petrol, were cut off. A body of
Congress supporters from Junagadh itself was encouraged to set up a
govemment-in-exile, in accordance with the best European precedent.

The Pakistan government did not react officially until 7 October
1947, when it claimed that, since Junagadh had legally acceded to
Pakistan, no one else had any right to intervene. It said it was obvious
nonsense to suggest that Junagadh was a threat to the other Kathiawar
states. The Pakistanis, however, were willing ‘to discuss conditions and
circumstances wherein a plebiscite should be taken by any state or
states’; but India should first withdraw her troops from the borders of
Junagadh. The phrasing of this Pakistani offer was deliberate. The
sting was in the word ‘any’. The Pakistanis really hoped for a plebiscite
in Kashmir, a Muslim state with a Hindu ruler who was still dithering
over which dominion he should accede to, but the government of
Indin refused the idea of a plebiscite unless they received a firm assur-
ance that Pakistan would agree to deal with die case of Junagadh and
Junagadh alone.

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

19 6

Indian troops in Kathiawar were now reinforced to a strength of
1,400 men, a troop of light tanks, and a squadron of aircraft. In addition
to these, there were 2,000 states’ troops. On 26 October, seeing the red
light, the Nawab left Junagadh in his private aircraft, with the state
jewels, as many dogs as he could get aboard, and three of his four wives,
for the safety of Karachi. The chief minister, faced with disorders
organized by Congress workers, soon appealed to the government of
India to take over the administration of the state. The government
agreed, and Indian troops crossed the state frontier. Pandit Nehru, in
telegrams to Liaquat Ah, explained that the occupation of Junagadh
was merely temporary and would only last until such time as a plebis-
cite could be held. He invited the Pakistan government to send repre-
sentatives to discuss the procedure. Pakistan, however, preferred to
stick to the letter of the law; Junagadh’s ruler had acceded the state to
Pakistan as he had every right to do; the Indian occupation was there-
fore a violation of Pakistani territory, and until India withdrew there
was no purpose in holding discussions. There the matter rested until
February 1948 when a plebiscite resulted in the not unexpected decision
to join India.

The situation in Hyderabad had one thing in common with that in
Junagadh. Over 80 per cent of the population was Hindu but the ruler,
known as the Nizam, was a Muslim. The army, the police, and the
government, were all in the hands of the Muslims, who formed a
ruling minority. There the similarity ended. Hyderabad was consider-
ably larger in area — some 82,000 square miles — and had a population
of sixteen millions. The state, positioned roughly in the centre of the
Indian peninsula, had no outlet to the sea and after partition would be
completely surrounded by Indian territory. Consequently, it was not
practicable for the Nizam to accede to Pakistan with which his only
possible communication would be by air. The only choice other than
state independence was that he should accede to Congress-dominated
India, but such a choice was abhorrent to the Nizam, who had always
considered himself superior to all the other princes, and had been
allowed by the British to act with considerable independence. If he
were to accede to India, he would be giving in to his Hindu subjects,
who, under Congress instigation, were now becoming vocal. In addi-
tion to his natural dislike of Congress, the Nizam was influenced by the
fact that his own personal position was largely dependent on Hyder-

THB VICTORY

197

abad’s ruling Muslim minority. This minority was backed by a kind of
political party, called the Ittehad-ul-Muslimin, which was fanatically
pro-Islam. Without their support, the Nizam could not have continued
to rule. Since they demanded independence, so must he, and, as we
have seen, he demanded it publicly in June 1947. Despite pressure from
the Ittehad, however, the Nizam was not prepared to act foolishly. He
reahzed that it would be wise not to antagonize India, so he dispatched
to Delhi a negotiating committee whose principal members were the
chief minister of the state, the Nawab of Chhatari, and Sir Walter
Monckton, his constitutional advisor.

It seemed from this negotiating committee’s attitude that the Nizam
was willing to give up most of the powers demanded by the instrument
of accession, but that he wanted to do so by treaty, as if he were an
equal. Also, he insisted on the right to remain neutral if there should
be a quarrel between India and Pakistan, and he reserved the right to
send his own representatives to Britain and elsewhere. Earlier, the
Nizam had asked the British government for dominion status for
Hyderabad, and this had naturally been rejected. But the Nizam still
wanted to retain some sort of relationship with the British Crown,
although what he hoped to gain from it is not clear. Mountbatten s
advice to the Nizam, however, was direct — forget about the past, sign
the instrument of accession, then negotiate with Congress. The advice
was sound; India could hardly grant concessions to Hyderabad without
inviting the risk of demands from other states. Even the biggest of the
states would have to agree to the same terms as everyone else. It seems
very likely that the Nizam would have accepted Mountbatten s
advice if it had not been for the pressure put upon him and the advice
given to him by the Iagos of the Political Department. By 15 August,
no accession had been made. The Muslim press in Hyderabad was
referring to the Nizam as ‘His Majesty , and Muslim mobs were

celebrating Hyderabad’s independence.

A standstill agreement had been arrived at to fill the vacuum when
paramountcy lapsed, so that the various services could continue, but
the life of the agreement was only two months. During these two
months, the Hyderabad army was enlarged to about 25,000 men, and
armament purcliases were made abroad and flown in by air, some in
aircraft loaned by Pakistan. The Ittehad was arming a force of terrorists
known as the Razakhars. At the same time, however, the Nawab of

198 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

Chhatari and Monckton were spending most of their time in fruitless
journeys back and forth to Delhi. The Indian government, with the
massacres in the Punjab to demonstrate what could happen when com-
munal violence got completely out of hand, was unwilling to make
concessions to the Nizam. Meanwhile, the Hyderabad state Congress,
with powerful support from outside, began a civil disobedience cam-
paign demanding accession to India and popular government in
Hyderabad. It did not suggest deposing the Nizam, for it was obviously
hopeful of driving a wedge between him and his more fanatical
Muslim supporters. By the end of September, however, more than
1,300 local Congress leaders had been arrested. Under the circumstances
both Chhatari and Monckton tendered their resignations to the
Nizam, but he refused to let them go, partly because he was not
a free agent and wanted to keep the negotiations going in the hope
that some agreement might emerge which he could reasonably
accept.

Lord Mountbatten, now governor-general of independent India, was
permitted by the Congress leaders to see whether he could succeed by
personal negotiation. It was assumed that he, as the cousin of the former
king-emperor, might have some influence with the Nizam, though that
influence had not been much use before. By 21 October, Mountbatten
had at least managed to extend the standstill agreement by one year,
during which time it was hoped that some wider agreement might be
arrived at. When Chhatari and Monckton returned to Hyderabad to
obtain the Nizam’s ratification of the agreement, however, news had
reached there that Kashmir had acceded to India. Muslim mobs
demonstrated outside Chhatari’s house demanding that Hyderabad
should make no concessions to India, and the Ittehad threatened ‘Direct
Action’ against the Nizam, if he should give in to India. Under this
pressure, he refused to ratify the agreement and publicly announced
that he did not contemplate acceding to India. Chhatari and Monckton
again offered their resignations and this time they were accepted. A
new negotiating committee was appointed which included a repre-
sentative of the Ittehad.

Congress was now becoming impatient, and Sardar Patel made a
number of speeches pointing out that what had happened to Junagadh
might well happen elsewhere. Despite everything, negotiations con-
tinued, and the standstill agreement was finally ratified in November.

THE VICTORY

199

The Nizam claimed that the agreement in no way permanently pre-
judiced ‘my rights as an independent sovereign’, but the answer was
not encouraging. ‘Placed as Hyderabad is,’ wrote Lord Mountbatten,
‘its interests are inextricably bound up with those of India, and my
Government hope that before the present agreement expires, it will be
possible for Hyderabad to accede to the Dominion of India.’

The internal situation in Hyderabad did not improve. The Raza-
khars took over control of the government and started raiding villages
in Indian territory. With charming good manners, Sardar Patel waited
until Mountbatten had left for England at the end of his tour of office,
before he began a propaganda campaign alleging that Hyderabad was
in a state of internal disorder. In September 1948, in what was euphem-
istically called a ‘police action’, Indian troops entered Hyderabad to
‘restore order’. The Hyderabad army and the Razakhars put up very
little resistance, and the Nizam, claiming that he had been misled by
his advisors, acceded to India. He was allowed to remain as constitu-
tional head of the state, to keep his great wealth, and to receive a privy
purse of ^750,000 a year. Apart from the nationalization of his vast
estates, he was not much worse off than he would have been if he had
acceded at the very beginning.

Junagadh and Hyderabad had been settled without too much trouble.
Pakistan could only protest and take both cases to the United Nations
where they were not even discussed. But Kashmir was, and still is, a
very different matter. The state — 77 per cent of whose inhabitants
were Muslims — had common frontiers with both Pakistan and India.
The frontier with Pakistan was long, and the only all-weather roads
into Kashmir, by which supplies were transported, ran to Pakistan. To
India there was only a fair-weather highway, closed by snow in the
winter. In Kashmir, too, were the head-waters of Pakistan s most
important rivers, the Indus, the Jhelum, and the Chenab, essential for
irrigation of the thirsty land. The situation of the Maharaja of Kashmir
was a mirror-image of that in Junagadh and Hyderabad, for he was a
Hindu ruling a Muslim state. After the Sikh wars in the 1840 s, the
Maharaja’s grandfather had been allowed to buy Kashmir from the
British, who had inherited it from the Sikh kingdom of the Punjab,
for nearly a million pounds sterling. Kashmir is very beautiful, full of
lakes and mountains, rather like an Indian Switzerland. It is also of
considerable strategic importance, lying as it does across die routes

200

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

followed by most of the historic conquerors of India, except the
British.

At the time, it did not seem unreasonable to assume that even such a
stupid ruler as the Maharaja Hari Singh would feel that he must accede
to Pakistan, but the political situation in Kashmir, rather like that in the
North-West Frontier Province, was not straightforward. There was
indeed a Muslim party in the state, closely tied to the All-India Muslim
League, but the most important figure in state politics was Sheikh
Abdullah, who, though a Muslim, was president of the National
Conference party which was equally closely tied to Congress. In June
1946, the Sheikh had been imprisoned for demanding the Maharaja’s
abdication, and in August 1947 he was still in jail. As in Hyderabad,
only in reverse, the mainly Muslim state was governed by a Hindu
Maharaja with Hindu officials and mainly Hindu troops.

The choice before the Maharaja was not particularly heart-warming.
If he acceded to Pakistan it would probably mean that he himself would
have to abdicate. If he joined India he would be going against Kash-
mir’s geographic, religious and economic affinities, which all lay with
Pakistan. Complete independence was out of the question, because the
state could not exist without supplies from outside. He was under
considerable pressure from Congress not to make a hasty decision, for
haste would probably have meant accession to Pakistan. Kashmir held
considerable personal interest for Nehru, whose ancestors had come
from there. But, more realistically, because Nehru hated the thought of
an India divided by religion, the state’s accession to India was import-
ant. If Kashmir went to Pakistan for religious reasons alone, it might
result in public demonstrations which would imperil die lives of
Muslims still left in India. As a result, the Maharaja was advised not to
make up his mind at least until he had been able to talk to Nehru.
Gandhi, off on another mission of peace, said the same thing, and even
offered to go to Kashmir to talk to the Maharaja. Mountbatten, how-
ever, decided he must go himself. He did not succeed in persuading the
Maharaja to accede to India— or to Pakistan. Mountbatten could prob-
ably have forced him to make a decision, but that decision would in
the circumstances almost inevitably have been in favour of India.
Mountbatten felt that he could not run the risk of the British govern-
ment being accused, through his actions, of such obvious partiality.
He would have been wise to have allowed someone else, preferably

201

THB VICTORY

V. P. Menon, to go in his place. By 15 August, all that had been
achieved was a standstill agreement between Kashmir and Pakistan,
and negotiations were in progress for a similar agreement with India.

Congress had hoped that the Maharaja would release Sheikh
Abdullah and that he and his followers could arrange popular pressure
in favour of accession to India. But the decision was taken out of the
Maharaja’s hands. The Muslim inhabitants of the district of Poonch
were a martial people who had supplied thousands of hardy soldiers to
the old British Indian Army. After partition, former soldiers in Poonch
demonstrated in favour of Kashmir’s acceding to Pakistan. When these
demonstrations were fired upon by the Maharaja’s Hindu troops, the
demonstrators rose in rebellion and put the state forces to flight. The
rebellion sparked off further disorder, for the rule of the Maharaja had
not been pleasant. The Kashmiri peasant was extremely poor; state
taxes were crushing; many Kashmiri homes were without windows
because of a special window tax; there was even a tax on hearthstones,
wives, animals, on practically everything, in fact. The money went to
support a profligate and bigoted ruler and a small minority of Hindu

officials.

Strictly speaking, the state was known as Kashmir and Jammu, the
latter being a Hindu-majority area. Into Jammu, which bordered the
Punjab, had fled many Hindu and Sikh refugees from the massacres in
the Punjab, lusting for revenge against Muslims. They attacked the

Muslim minority in Jammu with fire and sword.

While all this was taking place, the tribes of the Frontier areas were
responding to the cry of ‘Islam in danger ! And on 22 October thous-
ands of tribesmen invaded Kashmir, bent upon Hindu women, loot
and murder. Though the Pakistan government denied any responsi-
bility for the tribal invasion, it undoubtedly supplied the tribes with
transport, machine-guns, mortars and light artillery, while Pakistani
army officers, ostensibly on leave, led the contingents. The tribes swept
across Kashmir like a forest fire, killing and burning as they went.
When they were only twenty-five miles from the state capital,
Srinagar, they paused to quarrel over the division of the loot. On
24 October, the Maharaja decided to accede to India and appealed for
India’s help against the tribes. He also informed Mountbatten that lie
was about to set up an interim government under Sheikh Abdullah,
who had recently been released from detention. Indian troops were

202

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

flown in and, after a fortnight, they beat back the invaders. Open war
between the two new dominions was only narrowly averted, for Jinnah’s
immediate reaction to the flying in of Indian troops was to order the
Pakistan army to move into Kashmir. The commander-in-chief,
however, was an Englishman who refused to act without reference to
the supreme commander, Sir Claude Auchinleck. Otherwise there
might have been the prospect of two armies, each commanded by
British officers, each fighting the other. Auchinleck flew to Lahore and
saw Jinnah. He pointed out that to dispatch Pakistani troops into
Kashmir would be an act of war and that he, if Jinnah insisted on this
course of action, would order all British officers, including the com-
manders-in-chief of both the Pakistani and Indian forces, to resign
immediately. Jinnah, impressed by this straight talking, decided to
invite Nehru and Mountbatten to Lahore to discuss the frontier prob-
lem. It is still unresolved today, and as explosive as it ever was.

Pakistan’s attitude to Kashmir was motivated by rather different
forces from those which influenced their view of Junagadh and
Hyderabad. In the latter two, it was simply a case of the normal bloody-
mindedness of the Muslim League’s traditional policy towards
Congress. But Kashmir was another matter. The Muslim League
leaders, having thrived by exacerbating the rivalry between Muslim
and Hindu, were by now the victims of their own propaganda. They
had cried ‘Wolf’ so many times that they believed the animal was real.
They were firmly convinced that Congress was merely biding its
time, waiting for the British to get out of the way, and that it would
then reoccupy Pakistan. Many responsible Congress leaders, including
Gandhi, had prophesied that Pakistan would only be short-lived. Some
of these men even believed what they said. Jinnah believed they did
too, and Kashmir looked like the first step towards reconquest. The
leaders of Pakistan thought that they were surrounded by enemies
planning their destruction. Indian territory already enclosed Pakistan
from the east and now, with the accession of Kashmir, it appeared that
India was trying to close in from the north. This Pakistani feeling
of encirclement has vitiated Indo-Pakistan relations ever since that
time.

Apart from the cases of these three states, however, the problem of
the princes had at least temporarily been solved by the date of the
transfer of power. It was perhaps the greatest single achievement of the

THE VICTORY 203

last weeks of British rule. The princes could have caused chaos through-
out the length and breadth of India, and the consequences would have
made the tragedy of the Punjab almost a minor episode in the blood-
shed that would have resulted. As 15 August came and went, the
princes seemed to have gained a reprieve. In actual fact, it was only a
stay of execution.

The states could not be allowed to survive, since anachronisms
especially anachronisms of evil memory — had no place in the modem
world that was soon to burst in upon India. The States Ministry, as the
Congress States Department became after independence, headed by
Sardar Patel but actually the responsibility of V. P. Menon, soon set
to work to rationalize the situation. Menon was particularly well
suited to the task. He was an excellent administrator, fertile with work-
able ideas, but he was also very conscious of the evils of princely rule.
‘When I came up here years ago, a poor boy from Malabar, he re-
lated to an American newspaper correspondent in his Delhi office, I
went into a shop one day and watched a Maharam buy a hundred
expensive saris. Another time I was present when a Maharaja walked
into a sporting goods shop and casually ordered 100,000 rupees worth
of hunting rifles. And one day, on one of my civil service assignments,
I was stopped at fifteen different state customs posts on a thirty-mile
drive through Kathiawar. I thought it was time this sort of nonsense

was stopped.’

Menon set to with a will to consolidate the states into groups, a
sorbing some into the provinces that surrounded them. In the end, only
six princely states remained as separate political units, Mysore an
Hyderabad, because of their size, Manipur, Tripura, and Kutch,
because their strategic position on the frontiers made it desirable t lat
they should be directly administered by the central government, an
Bhopal, because of a special arrangement with the Nawab. T le
possessions of the princes were whittled down. In time, some o cm
were to set themselves up as tourist attractions for foreign visitors, to
turn their palaces into hotels. Recently, however, some have re-cnterc
politics, standing for seats in their former dominions, usually or parties
opposed to Congress. But their power, exercised so arrogant y or so

long, is at an end and India is all the better for it.

In 1946, a Congress leader, Asaf Ah, had warned the princes . ^ aos

will prove a powerful crucible for chaplets and bejewelled tiaras. But

204 THE LAST YEARS OP BRITISH INDIA

it was not chaos that did the work; it was Lord Mountbatten, Sardar
Patel, and above all the ubiquitous V. P. Menon.

9 The Peace Treaty without a War

As the Indian Independence Bill passed through the British House of
Lords in the middle of I947> the Liberal Peer, Lord Samuel, hailed it as
‘the peace treaty without a war’. In one sense he was right. It looked
very unlikely, as India neared independence, that the British would
suffer. But his phrase overlooked the evidence of history. The Bill was,
in fact, to end a war that had been going on for over thirty years, and
it brought peace only between India and Britain. The last battles were
still to come between Hindu and Muslim, and Britain could not shirk
part of the responsibility for them.

The passing of the Bill itself was not the end of Britain’s liability. It
was easy enough to declare, in somewhat turgid parliamentary lan-
guage, that the great adventure was over and that two heirs would
inherit the estate. But first that estate had to be divided in such a way
that the heirs would not quarrel and come to blows over the will. Part
of that task was comparatively simple and could be settled without
complaint. But the British were obliged, in the Punjab and Bengal, to
establish the actual frontiers between the two new dominions. It had
originally been suggested that the decision might be left to the United
Nations, but that organization was too new and untried for such a
formidable task. As the parties in India were unwilling to settle it them-
selves, the British had to do it for them. It is more than likely that, with
its characteristic ignorance of the tremendous difficulties involved, the
British government did not realize how difficult the task would be.
The Muslim League and Congress had finally agreed upon policy, and
the partition lines had been roughly decided. It seemed that all that was
necessary was to tidy up a few details on the spot. An obviously im-
partial arbitrator ought therefore to be appointed, and the British
government put forward the name of Sir Cyril Radcliffe (now Lord
Radcliffe), a distinguished lawyer with absolutely no knowledge of
India whatever. Radcliffe had in fact been asked in June 1947 to head a
joint Indo-Pakistan commission, which would decide upon the divi-
sion of assets as well as upon the frontier lines. But with the rapid

THB VICTORY

205

approach of the date for the transfer of power, it was decided to separ-
ate the two functions and appoint a separate committee to deal with
the assets.

Radcliffe arrived in India on 8 July 1947. Before he left London, he
had been told very little of what would be expected from him. It is
of course possible that the prime minister had not been prepared to
risk frightening him off, but it is much more likely that he was not
aware of the problems involved. Radcliffe knew that the transfer of
power was fixed for 15 August, but he was under the impression that
the temporary division of Bengal and the Punjab was to continue after
that date. He was soon to be disillusioned. The viceroy explained that
the matter had to be settled in five weeks — earlier if Radcliffe could
manage it ! It was originally intended that Radcliffe should act only as
the impartial chairman of two committees— one for Bengal and one
for the Punjab— each consisting of four Indian judges. In each of the
committees, two of the judges would represent Congress and two the
Muslim League.

The unfortunate Sir Cyril now began to realize just what his sense of
public duty and the British prime minister’s curious reticence had let
him in for. It was obvious that the Indian judges, who were supposed
to make the decisions, were subject to powerful outside pressures.
Everything was fine for Radcliffe — he could go back to Britain. But
the judges would have to live and work in the new dominions. They
soon made it clear to Radcliffe that they could not risk the responsibility
and that the decision would have to be his alone. In the circumstances,
it is difficult to blame them, and in fact they should not have been asked
to carry such responsibility. They had not really been asked to join the
committees at all; they had been ordered to do so, to protect their
country’s interests against the evil machinations of their colleagues.

Surprisingly enough, Bengal— in spite of Suhrawardy’s attempts to
gain independence, or at least the status of a free city for Calcutta
presented Radcliffe with a comparatively easy task although he was
inundated with schemes and suggestions. He observed that the province
had ‘few, if any, satisfactory natural boundaries . It was just not pos
sible simply to draw a line on a map which would smoothly divide the
Hindu from the Muslim areas, nor could he avoid severing the railway
system and the rivers on which so much of the transport of the province
moved. In the end, he decided on a line running nordi to south, from

20 6

ECONOMIC MAP OF INDIA

IN 1?47

Showing the railway system and the
boundaries of the Indian Union.

Broad Gauge Narrow Gauge

lesser lines not shown

Sjf H

x 4 r *
tfUtMrflar1

bmgKl

K -

: A
\ ^^'oShiilong

cf ;

r..: •

««*? ' **A

KKXdo £\

bfJ

^ A,

ilcuaafr

f r v

*|kw

'V\:#

0 /v K/

P

ro\J
\W

>>'F

p</ 7/
hv\

p:0/

— Partition lines between

India & Pakistan 1947

Provincial boundaries

• 10 largest cities of India 1941

Madras Capitals of Provinces underlined
Coal mining areas
A Copper

b Cotton Milts

c Docks

d Gold

e Iron & Steel

F Jute Mills

C Machinery 1 Engineering

(including railway worksj
H Manganese

j Mica

k Petroleum

1 Salt

m Iron Ore

n Sugar refining

English miles

6 50 '00 200 300 400 600

208 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

the Himalayan foothills east of Dageeling, to the Bay of Bengal east of
Calcutta. Calcutta, the largest city in the country, therefore went to
the new dominion of India. In any except religious terms, the partition
was highly unsatisfactory. For example, Pakistan was allotted an area
which grew about 85 per cent of the world’s jute production, but there
were no mills for processing it. On the Indian side of the frontier, there
was very little jute, but at least one hundred mills, as well as the prin-
cipal port from which jute products were exported. Economically, the
partition was completely mad. But once the division of India on reli-
gious lines had been established, no other criterion was possible.

Radcliffe awarded most of Sylhet, the Muslim-majority district of
Assam which had voted to join Pakistan, to East Bengal, along with
some bits of the adjoining districts which also had a majority of Muslim
inhabitants. Though the ‘award’, as RadclifFe’s decisions came to be
known, satisfied no one, the prime ministers of East and West Bengal
appealed to their people after the partition to accept it as the best

possible solution, at least for the tune being. Adjustments are still going
on to this day.

In the Punjab, however, Radcliffe was not so lucky. Whatever his
decision, one party was sure to be aggrieved, and it was to be the party
ready and willing to cause the most trouble. When Radcliffe arrived in
the Punjab, he found it seething with partly-suppressed violence. The
Sikhs, who stood to lose everything they valued to Pakistan, descended
on him with plans, arguments, threats, and even bribes.

Lahore, where Radcliffe was trying to arrive at his decision, was
caught in the grip of the Indian hot weather. (Kipling, that sadly mis-
judged laureate of the Indian scene, has caught all its horror in a story
about Lahore, which he called ‘The City of Dreadful Night’.) In the
Indian hot weather, even the air seems malevolent and grips one by
the throat. In 1947, the rains were late and there was very little differ-
ence between the burning day and the stifling night. Tempers are
easily frayed at such a season, and the edge between utter lassitude and
sudden violence is as thin as a knife-blade. In this sort of atmosphere,
Radcliffe found the weather and the politicians equally hostile. He
knew nothing of the country. He did not even know what it actually
looked like, and there was no time for him to go and see the land he
was dividing. The maps that were presented to him by various inter-
ested parties had all been cooked up the better to support their claims.

THB VICTORY 209

He had, in fact, great difficulty in finding a decent large-scale map
which actually showed the contours of the land, the canals, and the
exact positions of the rivers. When he did find one, he immediately
realized that the problem which faced him was not so much that of the
people’s religion as of the water which irrigated their fields.

The Punjab had been the showplace of British India. In it, some of
Britain’s greatest colonial administrators had played out their parts.
There they had built up a vast and complicated irrigation scheme, based
upon the five rivers which give the Punjab its name. Because of these
canals, the Punjab had become the garden and the granary of India.
The irrigation system must necessarily be disrupted by partition, since
the rivers that fed the canals and ditches that watered the fields were in
the eastern part of the area, which was destined to go to India. Rad-
cliffe suggested that, before he announced his award, some agreement
should be reached between the two sides for joint control of the waters.
He was brusquely told to mind his own business and get back to
drawing lines on the map. The religion of the people, and nothing else
— however important — was the only factor that was supposed to
concern him. Food, and the possibility of famine, were the politicians
burdens, not his. Exhausted by the heat, horrified at the sheer impossi-
bility of producing a plan that would not cause suffering or tragedy of
one sort of another, Radcliffe did what he was told and drew his lines
upon the map. The Bengal award was ready by 9 August, and the
Punjab award two days later. On independence day, Radcliffe flew
back to Britain. The public announcement of his awards was delayed
until 17 August to avoid marring the rejoicings on the day of freedom.
When the Punjab award was declared, it aroused the most bitter
criticism, especially from Pakistan. Ministers attacked it as disgusting ,
'abominable* and 'one-sided*, and the Muslim League newspaper
Dawn threatened that 'even if the Government accepts the territorial

murder of Pakistan, the people will not*.

As the day of independence came, the signs of chaos rose to the
surface. The public services slowly collapsed as the engine-drivers, the
engineers, the soldiers and the civil servants began to move from one
part of the country to the other. To add to man-made troubles, the
overdue monsoon threatened a shortage of food. This would have been
bad enough in normal times, but when transport was dislocated by the
division of rolling-stock, serious famine was far from improbable. The

210

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

transfer of police officers — Muslims to Pakistan, Hindus to India — had
demoralized a service which was not particularly trustworthy at the
best of times. The Sikhs, whose homeland was to be arbitrarily divided
between Pakistan and India, whose holy places would be on both sides
of the border, and whose people — nearly a million of them — were
about to be left to the mercy of the Muslims of Pakistan, had already
begun to battle for their faith and their possessions. Extremists on both
sides were inciting the mobs to revenge. Criminals who hoped to
benefit from the breakdown of public order were patiently at work.

The last British governor of the Punjab, Sir Evan Jenkins — a brave
and intelligent man of long experience — bombarded the viceroy with
assurances that if something drastic was not done soon the whole of the
Punjab would go up in flames. Sikh leaders had told him openly and
frankly that they intended to fight. They now admitted that when they
had agreed to partition, they had not really understood all the impli-
cations and that they had not expected that their homelands would be
divided. The British had let the Sikhs down, they said, and unless the
British government did something about it the Sikhs would make the
Punjab a desert of burning villages. Congress, they believed, had let
them down too, in its desire to grasp power for itself. Congress
thought it could ignore the Sikhs ; the Sikhs, however, were not weak
Hindus but a nation that had once ruled the whole of the Punjab before
the British conquered them.

For some reason — and without any justification whatsoever — the
Sikhs had thought that, since in all previous constitutional negotiations
they had received a consideration entirely out of proportion to their
numbers, no final settlement would be reached which did not make
their interests its primary concern. They had put forward a claim for a
Sikh state, but there was no homogeneous mass of Sikhs in the Punjab
and they did not constitute a majority in any of the districts. The
Muslim League had made no attempt to give them any assurances of
protection should they find themselves handed over to Pakistan.
Accept Pakistan, Jrnnah had told them, and then we will give you
justice. Because of this far from encouraging attitude, the Sikhs had
preferred that the Punjab be divided rather than that the whole pro-
vince should go to Pakistan. But they had managed to persuade them-
selves that, at partition, the whole of their community would go to
India. They claimed that the boundary ought to he upon the river

THE VICTORY

21 1

Chenab, which was in fact some 80 to 140 miles west of the frontier
that was finally fixed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Though the Radcliffe
award was not announced until after 15 August, before then it became
fairly obvious to the Sikhs that their interests were being ignored and
that the province was being divided purely upon a religious-majority
basis. Baldev Singh had obviously so convinced himself that no deci-
sion would be finalized which did not make Sikh interests the first
consideration, that he had not really followed what was being done
with his approval and consent. But, as the date for the announcement
of the award approached, even he began to have doubts, and he told a
meeting of Sikhs in Delhi that they should prepare for a struggle,
‘without looking for help from any quarter’.

Mountbatten and his advisers, however, were more worried about
the effects of partition in Bengal than in the Punjab; in Bengal, they
had the precedent of the great Calcutta killings. Everyone, presumably
on the strength of Baldev Singh’s agreement to the partition plan, had
expected the Sikhs to accept the division of the Punjab quietly. But at
last the viceroy began to realize that the Punjab was potentially even
more explosive than Bengal. On 15 July, he called a meeting of his
immediate advisers to discuss the Punjab situation, and four days later
he himself visited Lahore for talks with Jenkins. Mountbatten saw
enough to convince him that something had to be done. At a meeting
of the Partition Council held soon after his return to Delhi, it was
decided to establish a Punjab Boundary Force to maintain law and
order in the province under the direct control of the supreme com-
mander, Field Marshal Auchinlcck, and the Joint Defence Council.
This was to be another example of the terrible effects of ignorance
reinforced by haste. Unfortunately, the decision to establish an inde-
pendent military force for use in the Punjab came too late and, though
it did magnificent work with great resolution, the Force was tragically
unsuccessful.

It was decided, mainly on the strength of Sir Evan Jenkins warnings,
that the Force must be in operation by 1 August. The commander was
to be Major-General Rees, a veteran of the Burma campaign against
the Japanese. The Force was composed of both Muslims and non-
Muslims and Rees was to have as advisers Brigadier Ayub Khan (later
to become president of Pakistan) and a Sikh, Brigadier Brar. Later, two
additional advisers were appointed. Altogether, the Force numbered

212

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

about 50,000 men and there was a high proportion of British
officers to command them. This super police force was to operate in an
area of some 37,500 square miles, where the population consisted of
over fourteen million Hindus, Muslims and, above all, Sikhs. Every-
body was confident that such a force would easily preserve the peace,
but they were to be proved horribly wrong; Rees, a small and rather
self-opinionated man, was sure that his force could handle a few ill-
armed peasants, which was all he and everyone else expected he would
be up against; Mountbatten expected the mobs to come out into the
open and be crushed by superior fire power and military expertise. On
the whole, it seems that Sir Evan Jenkins’ reports were not treated with
the seriousness they deserved. This was perhaps partly because of the
collapse of the Intelligence service in the Punjab. Very little ‘reliable*
information was getting through to the viceroy, and Rees, too, was
fated to suffer from an absence of Intelligence. Furthermore, he was
not to have aircraft for aerial reconnaissance.

Satisfied that there was no longer anything to worry about in the
Punjab, Mountbatten flew to Calcutta on 30 July to find out whether
Bengal also would need a boundary force. There he was assured by
General Tuker that he would guarantee the preservation of order.
Mountbatten returned to Delhi with the feeling that everything that
could be done had been done.

It has been suggested by some commentators that the Sikhs could
have been mollified by last-minute concessions from Congress and the
Muslim League. Jenkins proposed that such concessions should be
offered, and V. P. Menon had put forward a scheme for turning the
great Sikh shrine some twelve miles north of Lahore into a ‘sort of
Vatican . Mountbatten, however, did not act on these suggestions.
Many reasons have been put forward for this inaction, including per-
sonal fatigue, unwillingness to be snubbed by Jinnah, and others with as
little foundation in fact. It is most unlikely that anyone at that time
seriously believed that Jinnah would be willing to make concessions to
the Sikhs, for, to him, concessions to the Sikhs would have seemed to
be concessions to Congress. Jinnah was only just in control of his
followers, and he was under heavy pressure from Muslim extremists.
He would almost certainly not have been able to convince them that
concessions were either necessary or wise. Furthermore, it is unlikely
that the Sikhs themselves, determined on war, would have been content

THE VICTORY

213

with minor adjustments of territory, or Vatican status for their shrines.
Whatever the reasons, no concessions were asked for, and none were
made.

The Sikhs made no attempt to conceal their warlike preparations.
Master Tara Singh, like some Old Testament prophet, was exhorting
his followers to go out and smite the Amalekites, inflammatory leaflets
were being distributed, and instructions sent to the various Sikh com-
munities to prepare themselves for action. Trains were to be attacked,
the headworks of canals dynamited, refugees ambushed, Muslims driven
from their homes, and there was even a plot to assassinate Jinnah in
Karachi on 14 August. This information came into Jenkins’ possession
from such Intelligence agents as were still operating, but it did not
really need Intelligence agents to find out that the Sikhs were organiz-
ing themselves for battle. The author if this book was in the Punjab at
the time, and, when he was passing through a village a few miles from
Amritsar, he was actually invited to watch a body of about three
hundred Sikhs drilling with rifles and tommy-guns. He was even
asked to adjudicate at a hastily-arranged rifle contest, in which the
targets were dummies of Muslim men, women, and children. There
would not be a Muslim throat or a Muslim maidenhead unripped in
the Punjab, he was told, and he was left in little doubt of the men s
willingness and ability to carry out the threat.

The information collected by Jenkins had now become a sizeable
dossier against the Sikh leaders, and it was taken to Delhi and placed
before a meeting of the Partition Council on 5 August. Jinnah and
Liaquat Ali demanded that the Sikh leaders be arrested but this would
have done little more than inflame their followers to an even higher
pitch of excitement. To stop the Sikhs now, it would have been neces-
sary to arrest the entire community. In any case, the most voca 1 leaders
were not the real organizers of rebellion. Patel advised a gainst the
arrest of Tara Singh; Nehru did not commit himself cither way. The
viceroy, in whose hands final authority still lay, hesitated to come do wn
on either side without first consulting Jenkins and the new governors-
dcsignate of East and West Punjab, Sir Francis Mudie, a consistent sup-
porter of the Muslim League, and C. R. Trivcdi, a distinguished Indian
who had been a governor under the British. All advised that the Sikh
leaders should be left alone, and they were probably right. Each gave
the advice for different reasons; Jenkins thought tliat it was now to o

214 THE LAST YEARS OP BRITISH INDIA

late for arrest to have any effect, Mudie did not care, and Trivedi
reflected the opinions of Sardar Patel.

By 14 August, the edge of independence, thousands of innocent
people had already been killed in the streets of Lahore and Amritsar
and in the villages of the Punjab. Refugees were beginning their sad
journeys out of the Punjab, Muslims to Pakistan, Hindus to India.
Many were attacked and butchered on the way. About 80,000 Hindus
and Sikhs had collected in Delhi alone. Hindu extremists, too, were
at work in the border regions, inciting the people to murder and
arson.

Gandhi again did his best to reduce violence, moving through the
riot-tom areas with his customary disregard for personal safety. But he
did not spend much time in the Punjab; he too believed that the worst
trouble would be in Bengal. There, he was to be outstandingly success-
ful. There he showed his real greatness. Not Gandhi the reformer, not
Gandhi the Hindu politician, but the Gandhi behind them both, the
man who hated suffering and violence. Though, through his past
actions, he had contributed as much as anyone to the communal
divisions which now resulted in bloodshed, he went out to face that
bloodshed when it came, and by doing so saved thousands of lives.
The Sikhs, however, were not particularly impressed by the Mahatma,
holding him to be as responsible for betraying them as anyone else in
Congress. But by this time there was nothing anyone could do in the
Punjab, neither a saint on the march nor a Boundary Force of 50,000
men.

Lord Samuel’s heart-warming comment can now be seen for what
it was— just another of the politicians’ empty phrases. A peace treaty
there undoubtedly was, but it was starting a war as well as ending one.

10 The Tryst with Destiny

On 14 August three men, two soldiers and a civilian, met on the air-
field at Lahore in the Punjab. They were Field-Marshal Auchinleck,
Major-General Rees, and Sir Evan Jenkins. The aircraft that had
brought Auchinleck from Delhi had passed over burning villages and
streams of refugees trudging east and west, and the news Jenkins had
to report was not reassuring. The police force was virtually non-

THE VICTORY

215

existent; most of the men had deserted, and over 10 per cent of the
city of Lahore had been burned by fire-raisers. There was very little
the three men could do about it. The civil administration, as Jenkins
had so often warned, was near collapse. Rees had insufficient men to
allow him to police the whole city and still keep enough men for all
the other trouble spots, and he was also becoming doubtful about the
trustworthiness of his own troops as they watched their co-religionists
— whether Muslim, Hindu or Sikh — murdering and being murdered.
British troops might have saved the day but, for political reasons, they
could not be used even if they had been available in sufficient numbers.
All that could be done was to try and save as many fives as possible.
To do more was out of the question. This was no longer rioting; it
was war, purposefully organized and fought by trained soldiers, many
of them ex-members of the British Indian Army. Rees, for all his
experience, did not have a chance.

In the Punjab, the Sikhs were not so much inflamed by the threat to
their religion as fighting with cold calculation to save their very con-
siderable material possessions. There, only superior force could stop
them. In Bengal, violence threatened too, but it was not so well organ-
ized nor so well armed. It was still the mad violence of religion,
irrational and emotional, and it could still be halted by an emotional
counter-appeal that would have been useless in the Punjab. Gandhi,
having left the Punjab, had begun to make his way to Noakhafi, where
he felt his presence was once again needed. On the journey he was
approached by a delegation of Muslims from Calcutta and by the
British governor of Bengal, Sir Frederick Burrows. Most Muslim
officials had already left Calcutta and the police force was now almost
entirely Hindu. Burrows felt that the Hindu population would now
take revenge on the remaining Muslims for the horrors of the great
killing of the previous year. All the delegates pleaded with Gandhi to
use his influence to prevent another and perhaps even more terrible
outbreak. For Gandhi, this presented a real dilemma. He could not be
in two places at once. However, using that moral blackmail at which
he was so adept, Gandhi agreed to stay in Calcutta only if the Muslims
would guarantee peace in Noakhafi. This they agreed to do. Messages
were sent to the Muslim leader in Noakhafi ordering him to control
his followers. The fact that he obeyed these orders and that there were
no more than minor outbreaks of communal violence at Noakhafi,

21 6 THE LAST YBARS OP BRITISH INDIA

supplies evidence that, on certain levels, the Muslim League was still
in a position to control its members’ activities. By the same token, it is
difficult to avoid the conclusion that the League, despite the denials of
its national leaders, was in fact organizing violence.

There is, however, considerable evidence that at this time the national
leaders of both Congress and the Muslim League were no longer in
absolute control of their more militant followers. Now that it was no
longer necessary to fight the British, the homogeneity of purpose which
the freedom struggle had imposed upon Congress and the League had
disappeared. Men like Jinnah and Liaquat Ali, Nehru and Patel, were
aware of this, and it partly explains their reluctance during the crisis
to do more than make speeches. It is very probable that, if they had
given orders, those orders would not have been obeyed.

Gandhi, however, could still exert his peculiar powers over the
people and, in Calcutta, he was to have a most improbable ally in his
crusade for peace. That ally was Suhrawardy, former prime minister
of Bengal. All Suhrawardy’s attempts to keep Bengal free and un-
divided had failed and his own future was not particularly bright.
Jinnah had had his revenge; there was to be no place for Suhrawardy
in the new dispensation. Jinnah had appointed someone else to be
governor of East Bengal and, when Suhrawardy visited Karachi, it
was made quite clear to him that as long as Jinnah was alive there would
be none of the plums of office for the ex-prime minister. Suhrawardy
returned to Calcutta and immediately went to see Gandhi, who, with
the shrewdness which so rarely deserted him at times of real crisis,
asked Suhrawardy to join him. Suhrawardy agreed and the two of
them took up residence in the Calcutta slum of Beliaghata. This was a
Muslim area surrounded by Hindu slums, evil-smelling cesspools of
disease, poverty and crime of a desperate, grinding, and bloody kind
almost unknown in the West.

When Suhrawardy arrived to join Gandhi, who had already moved
into a decaying mansion, he was met by a large crowd of militant
Hindus organized by the Hindu Mahasabha, a party strongly opposed
to Congress and to Gandhi, who it believed had betrayed them by
agreeing to partition. Suhrawardy, for all his deficiencies, was no
coward and he refused to show fear. Gandhi finally persuaded the mob
to let him through and, together, Suhrawardy’s courage and the
presence of Gandhi began to have their effect. The two men, so oddly

THE VICTORY

217

dissimilar, jointly addressed large crowds of Muslims and Hindus, while
students and many middle-class Indians also played a part in soothing
the people. On 15 August, mixed parties of Hindus and Muslims moved
through the city shouting a welcome to independence and proclaiming
their belief in the brotherhood of Hindus and Muslims.

Gandhi took no part in the ceremonies of celebration. In Delhi and
Karachi, the politicians hailed their triumph, but Gandhi spent the day
in a Calcutta slum, fasting, spinning, and praying. At 8.30 a.m. that
morning, to the sound of a 3 i-gun salute and the raising of the new
national flag, the last viceroy of India had been sworn in as the first
governor-general of the Dominion of India. Mountbattcn read out a
message from King George VI, now no longer Emperor of India:

‘On this historic day when India takes her place as a free and independent
Dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations I send you all my greeting
and heartfelt wishes. With this transfer of power by consent comes the fulfil-
ment of a great democratic ideal, to which the British and Indian peoples alike
arc firmly dedicated.’

In Karachi, Jinnah was also installed and read out a similar message from
the king.

But the sound of the ceremonial guns was being echoed by real guns
in the Punjab. Rees’s force, upon which so much faith had been pinned,
was already beginning to break up under the strain. The men were
worried about the safety of their families, and the Sikhs and Hindus
amongst them were being urged to desert or at least look the other way
when violence took place against Muslims. The British officers were
well aware of these strains, but there was little they could do about
them. The only real chance of controlling the situation would have
been for the forces of both new dominions to act decisively in their own
territories. But this was not possible, since both sides had agreed to
leave control to the Boundary Force. The setting up of this force was a
major error. It removed responsibility from where it should have lain
— with the armies of the new dominions. But the British government,
Mountbattcn, and the nationalist leaders had allowed the politica
considerations of the transfer of power to inhibit proper appreciation

of its likely effect. f

The principal blame, however, must be carried by Britain s La our

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

218

government. When, in 1945, it found that for the first time the oppor-
tunity to remake Britain in its own image was actually within its grasp,
other considerations took second place. Labour’s victory in the elec-
tions had only been one battle in the long war of the class struggle.
The citadels of privilege were falling, but many still remained. Labour
politicians were incredibly ignorant about India but they were not
prepared to listen to men who knew. Caught in the web of their own
propaganda, they could scarcely accept advice from the only experts
they could have turned to — the rulers of India, that privileged class of
British administrators who represented everything the party despised.
But, as time passed and the decision was made to transfer power, the
government was at last forced to ask the opinions of the generals and
the civil servants. It only accepted their advice, however, when that
advice seemed to support their own preconceptions. When Labour
ministers were informed that the British administration in India was
about to collapse, they believed what they were told and brought
forward the date of the transfer of power. When they were informed
that the country would have to be partitioned, they preferred to
ignore the advice and carry on as if power could be handed over to an
undivided India. Their suspicion of the Indian experts, whom they
thought tainted with Tory imperialism, led them to prefer a gifted
amateur like Mountbatten to someone with real knowledge of India’s
problems. Above all, being politicians themselves, they thought politi-
cal decisions could change everything, like a magic wand in a fairy
tale. As the honest and sincere men they undoubtedly were, they viewed
the bloody shambles of the Punjab with horror and loathing, but did not
seem to understand how much they had contributed to it themselves.

But, in the Punjab, some British were still trying to carry out their
responsibilities. British officers of the Boundary Force still managed to
hold their men together and do battle, and many lives were saved
because of them. The streams of refugees had now become a torrent,
and in the fust fortnight of independence it was estimated that over
500,000 actually crossed the frontiers. There were many more still on
the move. They travelled on foot, in bullock-carts, in lorries and in
trains. Some of the convoys stretched for fifty miles, and from the air
they looked like fat, slowly-crawling snakes. Both trains and convoys
were constantly attacked by bands of armed men who cut off stragglers
and abducted women.

THE VICTORY

219

Many men who were in the Punjab at that terrible time thought
that, if Jinnah and Nehru had toured the country before independence
and exercised firm discipline and control, if they had arrested the ring-
leaders and generally acted with determination, peace could have been
achieved. This belief has often been repeated during the long inquest
which still goes on to this day. But it was the present author’s opinion
at that time, and subsequent investigation has only confirmed it, that
personal appearances by the leaders would have had little effect. Imme-
diate action by the armed forces of the two new dominions, on the
other hand, could have had a decisive result. The crux of the matter
lies in the authorities’ misplaced trust in the capabilities of the Bound-
ary Force. This was partly the result of assurances given by the mili-
tary officers responsible for the Force, which were uncritically accepted
by the viceroy and the nationalist leaders. But the responsibility, though
legally it still lay with the viceroy, belonged fundamentally to the
successor states, which existed in embryo before 15 August. If Nehru
and Patel, Jinnah and Liaquat Ali, had been less concerned with divi-
sion of the assets of British India and more with the welfare of the
people, steps could have been taken to minimize violence in the Pun-
jab. But suspicion between the leaders had not been diminished by the
imminence of freedom. In fact, it had been increased. Jinnah was pre-
pared to quarrel over what he believed to be his rights, down to the
last typewriter ribbon which he was convinced Congress would try to
trick him out of. Nor did he trust Mountbatten, especially as he was to
be the first governor-general of India. Jinnah s suspicions were rccipro
cated by Congress, and the transfer of power took place, not in an
atmosphere of goodwill, but with the parties treating each other wit 1
the wary tension of two all-in wrestlers frightened of being caug it o
guard.

If the new governments did nothing before 15 August, t icy n™st c
given credit for acting after the celebrations were over, even w t
they did then was vitiated by pettiness and spite and not partic y
effective. When independence arrived, the leaders slow y egan
realize what freedom meant. The British, the old scapegoats, 1a go
and it would be no longer possible to blame them for cveryt g
went wrong. Indians and Pakistanis must now shoulder the responsi
ity. On 16 August the Joint Defence Council met to consi cr t e
Punjab problem, but the true seriousness of the problem was st no

Q

220

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

appreciated. The worst horrors were yet to come. The next day a
meeting took place at Ambala in the East Punjab between Nehru,
Liaquat Ah, and the governors and ministers of the two Punjabs. The
meeting issued a joint statement calling for peace and the Boundary
Force was considerably enlarged. But the situation had deteriorated
so much that by 20 August the Punjab was completely cut off from
outside except by air. Really drastic measures were now necessary.

On 29 August the Joint Defence Council, presided over by Lord
Mountbatten and attended by Jinnah, met at Lahore. The Boundary
Force was now almost helpless against well-organized Sikh opposition
and its commander was being attacked in the Pakistani and, much more
virulently, in the Indian press. The Council now decided that the
Boundary Force must be disbanded and that the task of keeping order
in the frontier areas should be taken over by the armed forces of the
two dominions. This was undoubtedly the best move, for it trans-
ferred responsibility from a joint force, harassed by the suspicions of
both sides, to the two governments and their armies where it should
have lain all along. It was decided that the two separate army head-
quarters intended to control the boundary areas should both be situ-
ated in Lahore. After the meeting, Nehru with Liaquat Ali, and Baldev
Singh with Sardar Nishtar, toured the troubled areas. On 1 September,
the Boundary Force ceased to exist, and Mountbatten hastily called its
commander to Delhi to which the communal war was now spreading.

The main problem which now faced the governors of the two Pun-
jabs was not so much the violence within the territory — for there were
now signs of a slight improvement in the situation — as the vast num-
bers of refugees fleeing from their homes to the protection of their
co-religionists in India or Pakistan. At first, both governments had
tried to persuade minorities to stay where they were, but this was hardly
the sort of advice that people in deadly peril of their lives could be
expected to take. Gathering up their belongings, they left their homes,
blocking the roads or congregating together in vast camps without
shelter, food, or sanitation. To make their situation worse, the mon-
soon broke and torrential rain added to the refugees’ misery. Un-
fortunately, the refugees carried with them tales of horror which were
retold in the press of both countries and given official sanction by the
information services of the two Punjabs. Jinnah, even while he appealed
for calm and peace, still bitterly attacked the Radcliffe awards as

THE VICTORY 221

‘unjust, incomprehensible, and even perverse’. Master Tara Singh
continued to thunder his denunciations. Nothing was being done to
reduce tension.

When news from the Punjab reached Calcutta, the harmony that
had been so carefully built up between Muslims and Hindus fell to
pieces on i September, when rioting broke out again and bombs were
thrown in the streets. The authorities acted swiftly and the trouble was
not allowed to get out of hand. Vast demonstrations of Hindu-Muslim
solidarity continued to take place. But the situation remained fraught
with danger and Gandhi, who was still in the city, decided that he
would begin a fast to the death which he would ‘end only if and when
sanity returns to Calcutta’. The entire police force of north Calcutta,
Europeans included, undertook a 24-hour fast in sympathy, while
continuing with their duties! In this and what followed, the unique
Indian-ness of India emerges. Nowhere else in the world could an ugly
little man of 77 years of age, growing steadily weaker because he
refused to eat, have such an effect. On the basis of this episode alone,
so alien to Western understanding, it becomes almost possible to
sympathize with the ignorance and incomprehension of India dis-
played by the British government and Lord Mountbattcn. After four
days, Gandhi received a pledge from Hindu, Muslim and Sikh leaders
to keep the peace in their own areas, and broke his fast. The city be-
came quiet almost overnight.

In Delhi, the old imperial city, tension was growing as increasing
numbers of refugees from the Punjab flooded into the city and the
surrounding countryside. By 5 September, some 200,000 had arrived
and the recital of their sufferings was stirring up feelings against those
Muslims who still remained in the city. In the narrow streets of old
Delhi, the old pattern of stabbings, hackings and rape began to form.
Sikhs and Hindus attacked Muslims who were fleeing along the roa
to the airport in the hope of escape to Pakistan; others were attacked in
the railway station. There, after one particularly terrible af&ay, tie
platform actually did run with blood, and bodies Uttered the trac
Mobs — many made up of refugees who had lost everything in tic
Punjab— screaming with frenzy, hurled great stones into flimsy Mus im
shops, and women and children looted everything within sight. In the
early stages, the police — Hindus and Sikhs themselves loo c
other way and occasionally even helped the rioters. But soon a 11 ita y

222

THB LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

force of five thousand men including British and Gurkha troops, with
no communal sympathies whatsoever, began to impose some sort of
order. The streets were patrolled day and night and the men had orders
to shoot to kill. The Muslims of Delhi were collected into large camps
protected by troops, though nothing was done for some time to pro-
vide them with food or shelter from the monsoon rains. After four
days of bloodshed during which all communications out of the city
were suspended and nearly a thousand people lost their lives, British
and Gurkha troops finally managed to restore order with the assistance
of Gandhi, who arrived from Calcutta on 9 September.

In the Punjab, however, the apparent improvement had been an
illusion. In the refugee camps, cholera had broken out. Torrential rains
had flooded the country on both sides of the border, breaching rail-
ways and roads, destroying food stocks, and drowning the refugees in
their squalid quarters. Attacks on trains carrying Muslim refugees had
increased, and even British officers, who had formerly been spared
because of their white skins, were now being killed with their men.
Both governments were finally forced to suspend rail traffic between
Delhi and Lahore. There were simply not enough troops to protect the
trains or the vast convoys moving along the roads. Some two million
people were on the move and convoys often numbered several hun-
dreds of thousands. By the end of September, relations between the
two dominions were worse than they had ever been.

The newspapers, completely uncontrolled, bristled with atrocity

stories and calls for revenge. Extremist leaders demanded that troops

should be sent across the borders to rescue their co-religionists. The

Pakistan government alleged that India was deliberately driving

Muslim refugees into Pakistan in order to bring about administrative

and economic collapse. It was, Jinnah trumpeted, a deep-laid and well-

planned conspiracy to bring Pakistan to her knees before she had even

properly stood up. Counter-accusations flared back from India, and

even Gandhi gave way and joined in the general bitterness by attacking
Pakistan.

As the last days of British rule had drawn to a close, Nehru, referring
to the time in January 1930 when he and other nationalist leaders had
raised the Congress flag and taken a pledge to win freedom for India,
spoke these moving words: Long years ago we made a tryst with
destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge,

THB VICTORY

223

not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.* No one who was
present at that brave ceremony over seventeen years before bad thought
that destiny bad so much suffering and bitterness in store for them.

But at least this particular suffering and bitterness could not be placed
directly at the door of the British, for they were free at last from the
responsibilities of ruling an alien people. The white man’s burden had
been dropped— on to the backs of the nationalist leaders. Some, but
very few, Englishmen were overjoyed at the chaos that seemed to be
enveloping the old Indian empire. Had they not always forecast that,
as soon as the British left, anarchy and rapine would take their place?
Some, but very few, felt a sense of shame. But on the whole the general
feeling was one of relief, of having got out of a mess comparatively
unscathed. The British had never expected anything from their
Indian subjects except, as Kipling put it, ‘The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard.’ Now, they were awarded an instant
friendship and goodwill which, under the circumstances, should have
been a cause for embarrassment and heart-searching rather than un-
critical pride.

A number of Englishmen, however, had not left India when British
rule ended. To these men, India and Pakistan owe much more than they
are as yet willing to admit. Lord Mountbatten remained as governor-
general of India, Field-Marshal Auchinlcck as supreme commander—
though his heart was no longer in his admittedly thankless task while
the commanders of both dominions’ armies were still British generals,
and others of lesser rank but no less value also remained. Some of the
old British governors stayed at their posts ; so did a few civil servants.
The influence of these men was out of all proportion to their number.
There is no doubt that when, under the impact of the bloody horrors
of the Punjab and the tribal invasion of Kashmir, peace between t le
two new dominions trembled on a knife-edge, the presence o a ew
British in key positions drew both countries back from the e ge o
irretrievable disaster. And then they too left. Behind them, nc^r ^
600,000 people had died in the Punjab and some 14 *on
been forced to leave their homes.

POSTSCRIPT

l The Inheritance

With the division of India on purely religious grounds, it looked at the
time as if the British occupation had left very little of lasting value. ‘You
found us divided/ said an Indian friend to the author on independence
day, ‘and you have left us the same way.’ Certainly, in the chaos that
then surrounded us, the criticism seemed just. In modem terms, the
partition of India was an act of madness. The British, once they had
achieved control of the whole of the country, had dealt with it as a
unit, had, in fact, created India out of an anarchy of warring states. The
great changes of the late nineteenth century, the development of com-
munications and of industry, had reinforced administrative unity with
the interdependence of economic life. Partition cut that life in two.
The case of Bengal and jute was duplicated on the other side of the
country, where the cotton-growers of Pakistan — who produced over
half the total crop before partition — now found themselves cut off
from the mills and markets of the new India. There were many other
such anomalies.

Partition might not have been disastrous if the two new countries
could have been friendly and could have co-operated economically for
their separate welfare. But the political pressures that had made parti-
tion inevitable were to make co-operation impossible. Both countries
had to turn inwards and reconstruct their economies on the basis of
what had been left to them. Anger over the disruption of economic
life reinforced the bitterness that had grown up in the political life o
India before partition.

The administration too had to be rebuilt. The trend of administrative

change under the British had been towards decentralization. The 1935

Act had brought in representative government for the provinces, an

227

228

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

this had helped to intensify the separatist tendencies which found their
final expression in the creation of Pakistan. These tendencies, given
even stronger sanction by the Cabinet Mission plan, would have
weakened the Centre to such an extent that it would not have been
able to function, and die breaking up of India into provincial groupings
with almost complete, and possibly even actual, independence would
have been inevitable. The creation of the two new dominions put an
end to decentralization and encouraged the establishment of strong
central authorities. In India, however, centralization has not been taken

far enough, and the self-interest of the states which make up the Indian
Union seriously inhibits the emotional unity of the country — that sense
of belonging to something bigger than one’s own village or town
which makes a nation. To a large extent, the functional machinery of
British rule was retained, basically because there was no alternative.
Despite constant nationalist claims that Britain did not associate
Indians in the government of India, as time went on the British had
employed more and more of them in the administration. These men had
been trained in the British tradition and knew no other. Politicians may
cause revolutions and change governments, but generally speaking
they know very little about how government works. That, when they
are successful, they must leave to a civil service.

\\ hen freedom came, the nationalist leaders — appalled by the actual
problems of government — could not ignore those Indians and Paki-
stanis in the civil services whom they had once sneered at as lackeys of
the British. During the first few months of power, Congress politicians
overruled civil servants on questions of day-to-day administration,
simply because they could not rid themselves of the prejudices they had
built up when lighting tor independence. Good sense, however, pre-
v ailed when they discovered that it was not possible to run a country
like a political party. Administrative experience was the most import-
ant physical legacy which Britain left — and which her successors
accepted in India. Basically, of course, the successors had no real
choice. They did not know how to run the administration but the civil
servants, who had been trained bv the British, did.

S

The new rulers of India and Pakistan were also the inheritors of
nearly thirty years of constitutional reform which culminated, in the
r935 Act, with the establishment id representative government in the
provinces. Congress, because its leaders were Westernized in their

229

THE PLEDGE REDEEMED

political thinking, had rejected traditional Indian forms of government
in favour of the more sophisticated institutions of Western liberal
democracy. They had fought for popular democracy because, through
it, they would achieve the fruits of office for themselves, and — apart
from a few like Subhas Chandra Bose — they had relied on the justice of
their demands to help them convince the British of their democratic
right to rule themselves. From the point of view of the top Congress
leaders, independence was the natural culmination of the years of con-
stitutional reform. They had early placed their faith in democracy, and
they were hardly likely to discard it once it had been achieved. Of
course, the Congress leaders’ attitude to democratic forms of govern-
ment was not entirely an expression of their theoretical belief in its
essential goodness; democracy meant the rule of the majority, and no
one doubted that Congress commanded the support of the majority.
Most of the secondary and lower levels of Congress membership had
little faith in democracy as such but were prepared to accept a demo-
cratic form of government because they knew they would not suffer
by it. In fact they did not care what sort of government they got as
long as Congress dominated it. Experience after the provincial elec-
tions of 1937 had shown them the advantages. If the top leaders
wanted liberal democracy, they could be indulged without anyone
losing the gains of office.

Democracy as a system had no roots in India, but only an intellectual
and emotional appeal to the Westernized middle class which expected
to gain from it what had been denied to them by British tyranny .
The fact that parliamentary institutions seem to work in India has
deluded many in the West into believing that these were Britain s most
seminal legacy and that, because of them, India is the world s largest
democracy. But these institutions exist only by the consent of those
who profit from them, and even then arc fundamentally distorted by
self-interest. As soon as real opposition to Congress dominance
emerges through the medium of democratic procedures, the desire to
abandon parliamentary institutions will increase. India s acceptance o
democracy — and her toleration of it — is based not on any fundamen
belief in its moral virtue, but in the fact that as yet it does not inhi it

the enjoyment of power by the ruling class.

The Pakistanis, however, were positively opposed to democracy.
The Muslims of undivided India, ever since the first reforms of the

THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

230

late nineteenth century, had feared democracy just because it meant
the rule of the majority. As the British granted more and more con-
cessions in response to Congress demands for representative govern-
ment, so the Muslims became more and more antagonistic. Jinnah,
essentially authoritarian in his political thought, attacked democracy
because it discriminated against the minority, and the idea of ‘Pakistan*
was devised, not to gain democracy, but to escape the consequences
of it. He and his colleagues did not change their attitude after inde-
pendence. Muslim nationalists rejected democracy for exactly the same
reasons as Congress welcomed it, and, though for a number of years
after independence quasi-democratic institutions existed in Pakistan,
they were not introduced by constitutional legislation but left over
from the 1935 Act. The governor-general of Pakistan still retained
extensive discretionary powers, under which he could dissolve the
legislative assembly if he chose, without reference to the political
parties. A new constitution promulgated in 1956, when Pakistan
became a republic, left the president with almost the same powers, and
two years later the Pakistan Army took over the government and has
ruled ever since. Under yet another constitution introduced in 1962,
there has been an introduction of democratic institutions on the very
lowest level. By an odd irony, opposition to the military regime has
followed the pattern of the Congress fight against the British. Poli-
ticians in Pakistan are now demanding parliamentary institutions as
the only alternative to military tyranny.

India and Pakistan inherited the old antagonisms between Hindu and
Muslim. Though the primary struggle had been against the British,
the final stages of that struggle were framed in religious conflict. This
conflict was at the root of the political struggle and was strengthened
by the pattern of that struggle. With the creation of Pakistan, these
antagonisms were institutionalized, and though both countries deny
that religion is at the bottom of their disagreements and suspicion, it is
nevertheless true that the conflict between the Muslim League and
Congress during the years before independence has been perpetuated,
and even reinforced, by the governments of India and Pakistan. British
rule did not create these antagonisms, but only the opportunity to use
them as a political weapon. Tilak had been the first to recognize the
power of religious feeling as a weapon against the British; Jinnah
learned the lesson and turned it against Congress.

THE PLEDGB REDEEMED 231

Most apologists for British imperialism point to the fact that those
who inherited its estate had been created in a Western image, that
political power was handed over to those who most closely resembled

and appreciated — the best in the British political system. The im-
perial justification lay in the fulfilment of a mission. The great day had
arrived which Macaulay had foretold, ‘the proudest day in English
history , when having tasted the delights of English institutions,
Indians demanded them for themselves. Certainly the prophecy had
been fulfilled, but the real legacy of the British connexion was rather
more than the ‘imperishable empire of our arts, our morals, our litera-
ture, and our laws’. The British, having made a great renunciation
of empire, were forced to justify that renunciation with almost as much
vehemence as they had once justified its retention. ‘The imperishable
empire* was the answer, for it was only by pointing to the triumph of
British ideas that the British could claim to be different from other

imperial powers.

The legacy of imperialism — whether British, French, or Dutch — was
Westernization’, a concept which implies the acceptance of Western
political ideas and values. A better word is ‘modernization’, which
means the acceptance of Western industrial and economic techniques
and the patterns of behaviour and values which go with them. Even
where Western political institutions have been rejected, and where
foreign policies are avowedly anti-Western, ‘modem techniques
which originated in the West have not been rejected. The primary
response of colonial Asia to the West was to demand the political
institutions of the conquerors. The secondary response, and the one
most far-reaching in its consequences, was the demand for industrial-
ization and the sort of society which had evolved because of it. The
conflict that now exists inside former colonial territories is not so much

between political ideologies as between traditional societies and their
‘modernizing’ minorities. This conflict is on a much vaster scale than
the struggle between the nationalists and their former rulers. The
struggle for freedom was only a conflict between elites— the alien
rulers and the Westernized native minority. Now it is between a
way of life sanctified by religion and custom, and the modern world of
technology.

A more immediate legacy of the British transfer of power was not
to the Indian people at all. but to those of the other colonial empires.

232 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

Despite the unwillingness of France, Holland, and in particular Portu-
gal, to give up their empires, the ending of British rule in India made it
inevitable that they should do so. The Indian Independence Act of
1947 was a charter of liberty for the peoples of colonial Asia and of
Africa.

There was one other legacy and it was shared both by Britain and
those who succeeded her in India. There have been many criticisms — as
this book has only too clearly shown— of British behaviour towards
India during the years of power and in the final days of weakness. But
the act of renunciation itself was without precedent or even analogy in
history. The Labour government’s action, though based upon ignor-
ance and misunderstanding and vitiated by grave tactical errors, was
in the final analysis an act of statesmanship. It permitted India and
Pakistan to remain friendly with Britain, and though that friendship
has often been frayed it has never been broken. All have benefited from
it. For India and Pakistan, membership of the Commonwealth brought
immediate, and not unwelcome, status in the world outside. It also
brought aid and advice — and economic advantage. The reality of this
continuing link with Britain needs no further proof than the fact that
India, faced in 1962 with a Chinese invasion of her frontier areas,
turned to Britain and the Commonwealth for help and received it
almost as of right. Cynics maintain that only advantage brought India
and Pakistan within the Commonwealth and has kept them there; they
are probably right. But the advantage would not have been seen, nor
would it in fact have existed, if Britain had not given up India peace-
ably instead of trying to hold on to it by force.

2 The Inheritors

The mantle of British rule fell upon those who had learned most from
the West, upon an £lite almost as remote from the mass of the people
as the administrators they replaced. Essentially, the freedom move-
ments— Congress and the Muslim League — were not mass parties,
despite the fact that Gandhi had given Congress the appearance of
being so. Because of Gandhi, the British believed that the struggle for
freedom was firmly based upon the mass following of Congress. But
did Congress in fact have a mass following? Certainly Gandhi had

THE PLEDGE REDEEMED

233

demonstrated that the peasant could be manipulated for political pur-
poses, but so too had religious extremists and, on a criminal level, so
had the gangsters who incited mobs so that they could profit from the
loot. Because India was so large and her population so vast, the num-
bers of those who could be called upon for action were large too. A
Congress membership of four million appears immense in terms of
English political parties, but that number is small when it is related to
the four hundred million or so of India’s population.

It is also interesting to examine the caste background of Congress
members. Most of the leadership, during the freedom struggle and
after independence, came from the higher castes of Indian society. In
fact, Congress organization seemed, and still seems, to favour the
traditional Indian-dominant classes, even if their representatives are
disguised behind a Western veneer. The only exception is the Ksha-
triya or warrior caste, to which in the past most Indian rulers belonged.
Only one major Congress leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, was a
Kshatriya and he was squeezed out by his traditional enemies, die
Brahmins and the Vaisyas — the first represented by Nehru and Patel,
and the second by Gandhi. Subhas took a typically Kshatriya course by
attempting to overthrow the British by violence. In fact the triumph of
Congress in 1947 was a victory in the caste war which had been going
on for centuries, and to this day the Kshatriyas — dispossessed princes,
traditional landowners, and so forth — are to a large extent excluded
from government. In Pakistan, though the traditional structure of
Muslim society differs from the caste system of Hindu India, the
inheritors came almost entirely from the old ruling classes or from
the so-called ‘martial’ elements. In both countries, however, whatever
the traditional pressures, the £litc was fully persuaded of the need for
‘modernization’. Because of this, they have engaged in large-scale
economic activities which arc undermining traditional patterns of
society. The British had only once deliberately attempted to reform
Indian, and specifically Hindu, society, though by their very presence
and the use of Western administrative methods, codes of law, industrial
techniques and so on, they could not avoid influencing the social order
to some extent. The area in which they had chosen to attempt reform
concerned aspects of the religious life of the people such as suttee, or
widow-burning, but one of the consequences of these attempted
reforms was the Indian Mutiny of 1857 which so frightened the British

234 THE LAST YEARS OF BRITISH INDIA

that they made no further attempts to change Hindu society. The
British were ‘modernizers’ only insofar as it was to their advantage as
rulers and businessmen; their successors are ‘modernizers’ by necessity,
and are consequently involved in the promotion of social change. The
British preserved the social order because it was to their advantage not
to interfere with it. Their successors have been forced to strike at its
very roots. As a result, the mass of the Indian and Pakistani peoples are
the inheritors of a process of ‘modernization* loosed by the transfer of
power.

It was not only the people of India who were changed, and are being
changed, by the ending of British rule. The people of Britain too found
themselves in a very different world because of it. Vast social changes
have taken place in Britain, particularly in the welfare and wealth of
the working classes. The propaganda of colonial nationalists and the
quasi-Marxist ideology of British socialists insisted that colonial rule
was exploitive, that the riches of India were drawn away for the
aggrandizement of the conquerors. But if this in fact had been the case,
the former metropolitan power should have suffered economically
when empire passed away. Yet Britain is better rather than worse off
today when she has lost nearly all her overseas possessions. In purely
economic terms Macaulay has once again proved to be a remarkable
prophet. In a speech in the House of Commons in 1833 he said:

‘It would be, on the most selfish view of the case, far better for us that the
people of India were well-governed and independent of us than ill-govemed
and subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings, but wearing our
broadcloth, and working with our cutler)', than that they were performing
their salaams to English collectors and English magistrates, but were too
ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English manufactures. To trade with
civilized men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages. That would
indeed be a doting wisdom, which, in order that India might remain a depen-
dency, would make it a useless and cosdy dependency; which would keep a
hundred millions of men from being our customers in order that they might
continue to be our slaves.’

Trade with India and Pakistan has increased since independence and
Britain no longer carries the immense burden of responsibility for their
government.

But in one sphere the British people may have suffered by the disso-

THE PLEDGE REDEEMED 235

lution of their empire. Many people felt a sense of personal loss as all
the pomp of yesterday became one with Nineveh and Tyre. Empires
are not merely political and economic realities; their possession be-
comes part of the national psychology of the imperial power. There is
an ‘identification* with empire that is not restricted to those of the
upper and middle classes who benefit from it. Even those who bitterly
attacked the imperial adventure as a symbol of outmoded privilege still
seem to feel a sense of constriction as the Union Jack flies over fewer
and fewer of the outposts of empire. This feeling has nothing to do
with reality, for it is obvious to practically everybody that to attempt
to hold on to an empire in present world conditions could lead only to
disaster. Because this feeling is irrational it has received irrational ex-
pression in such neo-imperial gestures as the attack upon Egypt over
the Suez Canal in 1956 — which, according to public opinion polls, was
supported with almost nineteenth-century emotion by at least half the
British population. This, and the attempt to hold on to the island of
Cyprus, were part of the price that had to be paid for a readjustment of
national attitudes.

The imperial adventure was something that dominated the imagina-
tion of men, and attempts to resurrect the glories of the past appeal to
the imagination as well. While Britain still had her empire, the propa-
ganda of imperial greatness was just as much a part of it as the Royal
Navy and the Indian Army. The empire had its martyrs and its hagi-
°l°gy, its saints’ days and its shrines. The rejection of these by the
British people made it possible for the Attlee government to dispose of
India peacefully. But as the British people’s material wealth has
increased and Britain’s stature in the world diminished, both Labour
and Conservative politicians have made appeals to the past as justifica-
tion for the future. There is great danger in dwelling upon the glories
of the past and ignoring the lessons it contains. Though history has
warnings for us all, they arc seldom recognized and even more rarely
acted upon, as the events of the last years of British India so amply
testify.

INDEX

Index

Abdul GhafFar Khan, 142; arrest of,
54; demands independence for
North-West Frontier Province, 1 80
Abdullah, Sheikh, 200
Abell, George, 148, 151; flies to
London with withdrawal plan, 158
Administration, 15 et seq.; by East
India Company, 4, 13; policy of,
14; devotion of British, 17; phil-
osophy of, 18; policy towards
Montagu report, 39; decline of
British element, 96 ; uncertainty of,
1 14; decline in numbers, 135, 136;
division of, 179; collapse of, in
Punjab, 215 ; rebuilding of, 227
Afghanistan, 180
Ahimsa, 42

Ahmadabad, Gandhi at, 53
Akbar, Emperor, 26
Alexander, A. V., 102; on Cabinet
Mission, 101

All-India Congress Committee, 29;
plans for negotiation withjapan, 80.
See also Indian National Congress
All-India Muslim League, formation
of, 26. See also Muslim League
Ambcdkar, Dr, 61; member of in-
terim government, 125
Amery, L. S., 72, 84
Amritsar, 92; massacre at, 43 et seq.,
49; riots in, 43, 135, 179, 214
Anderson, Sir John, opinion on
Indian policy, 132 ;on minorities, 138
Anglo-Indians, separate representa-
tion for, 39

Armed forces, partition of, 153 et seq.,
158, 161, 164, 178 etseq.

Armed Forces Committee, for parti-
tion, 178 et seq.

Army. See Indian Army

Asaf Adi, 203

Assam, 100, 142, 208; as part of
Pakistan, 103 ; attitude to constitu-
ent assembly, 132, 133; fears
134; government of, 139; violence
in, 143; provisions for in partition,
168

Atlantic Charter, 73

Attlee, C. R. (Earl), 49, 122; member
of Simon Commission, 48 ; on self-
government, 83; character of, 95;
on minorities, 100, 102; opinion of
Jinnah, 122; receives cable from
Gandhi, 122; tells Wavell to form
interim government, 123; invites
leaders to London, 129; announces
date of withdrawal, 136, 156; on
rival communities, 136; instruc-
tions to Admiral Mountbatten,
145 et seq.', policy on withdrawal,
160, 177; calls Lord Mountbatten
to London, 164

Auchinlcck, Field Marshal Sir Claude,
123, 135. 148. 175, 179,202; opposes
plan to divide armed forces, 154; dis-
cusses division of armed forces, 158;
controls Boundary Force in Punjab,
21 1 ; discussions on Punjab, 214

Ayub Khan, Brigadier, 21 1

239

INDEX

240

Azad, Maul ana, 70; imprisonment of,
74; on separation, 98; offers com-
promise, 104; resignation of, 107;
intelligence of, 108; reaction to
plan of partition, 171; memoirs,

175

Babariawad, 194

Bagliat Singh, 59

Baldev Singh, 123, 169, 211; at meet-
ing in London, 130; opposes plan
to divide armed forces, 154; at
meeting on partition, 167; broad-
cast on partition, 170; tours
Punjab, 220

Baluchistan, as part of Pakistan, 103 ;
government of, 139; agrees to
join Pakistan, 180

Baroda, joins assembly, 185

Bengal, 24, 142; opposition to division
of, 27; riots in, 54; Muslims in,
100; as part of Pakistan, 103 ; divis-
ion of, 103; famine in, 117; con-
tinued violence in, 117 et seq., 125;
government of, 139; provision in
withdrawal plan, 168; partition,
170; decides on partition, 179;
problem of partition, 204, 205,
208; violence over partition, 215 et
seq.

Bhopal, 191, 203

Bhopal, Nawab of, 174, 184; tries to
form federation of princely states,
185, 192

Bihar, violence in, 126, 129, 149

Bikaner, joins assembly, 185

Birkenhead, Lord, sets up Simon
Commission, 49; reaction to Irwin
statement, 51

Bombay, 135; Congress property
confiscated in, 55; naval mutiny in,
1 12 et seq.; Nehru meets Jinnah at,
116

Bose, Rash Behari, 85

Bose, Subhas Chandra, 45, 58, 87,
229, 233; opinion of Gandhi, 61;
made President of Congress, 67;

resignation o£ 67; tries to contact
Russians, 75; in Berlin, 75, 76;
arrives in Tokyo, 85; Gandhis
opinion of, 85; death of, 88; as
martyr, 92

Boycott, of British goods, 28
Brar, Brigadier, 21 1
Britain, responsibility for govern-
ment of India, 4 et seq. ; ‘civilizing’
approach to India, 5 et seq.; pres-
tige after 1914-18 War, 12;
opinion of Gandhi, 47, 53 ; National
Government in power, 59; offer of
future dominion status, 68; asks
Congress to join executive council,
70; sense of mission, 72; promise of
new constitution, 77; new offers,
77, 78 ; sends Cabinet Mission, 101 ;
refuses to limit powers of princes,
189; refuses dominion status to
Hyderabad, 197; responsibility in
Punjab war, 217; statesmanship of,
232; effect of withdrawal from
India, 234

British government of India, develop-
ment of, 17

British Empire, loss of interest in, 32
British India Association, 22
British public opinion, on Indian
independence, 3, 96; effect on Indian
self-government, 12
British withdrawal, plans for, 135;
date of, 136; House of Commons
debate on, 138; draft plan pre-
pared, 154; dangers of, 157; details
of plan, 160; Nehru’s rejection of
plan, 162; Lord Mountbattcn pre-
pares new plan, 163; revised date,
164, 169; acceptance of plan, 168;
decision on date, 177; problem of
princely states, 181 et seq. See also
Partition

Brockman, Captain Ronald, 148
Burke, Edmund, on Supreme Court
in Calcutta, 4; on British rule, 13
Burma, separation from India, 63
Burrows, Sir Frederick, reaction to
Bengal riots, 1 19
Butler, R. A., on minorities, 138

INDEX

24I

Cabinet Mission, 189; members of,
101; issues facing, 102, 103; pro-
poses Indian Union, 105; attempt
to form interim government, 109
et seq. ; returns to England, 1 1 1
Calcutta, 205, 208, 212; supreme
court in, 4; riots in, 54, 156; naval
mutiny at, 113; further riots in,
117 et seq., 125, 215, 221; visit of
Gandhi and Suhrawardy to, 216
Campbell-Johnson, Alan, 148, 163
Central Assembly, election of, 97
Centre, the, 10

Chamber of Princes, formation of,
182; ask for right to form union,
183

Chhatari, Nawab of, 197, 198
China, 79, 81
Cholera, in Punjab, 222
Christians, separate representation for,
39

Churchill, Sir Winston, 73, 74, 78,
82, 84, 138, 175; resignation from
shadow cabinet, 58; sends Cripps to
India, 77; reaction to failure of
Cripps Mission, 79; rejection of,
88; on Indian question, 132; on
minorities, 138; accepts partition,
72

Civil disobedience, success of, 32;
Gandhi’s first attempt, 46; break-
ing of salt laws, 53 ; resumption of,
60, 71 ; in Punjab, 141
Civil Service. See Indian Civil Service
Civil war, danger of, 102, 106, 112;
threat of, 113, 132, 144; prepara-
tions for, 157, 176; Siklis prepare
for, 169

Cochin, joins assembly, 185
Commonwealth, effect of partition,
158 et seq.

Communications, between London
and India, 4; difficulties of, 13
Communists, arrest of, 51; influence
amom> peasants, 144; reaction to
plan for withdrawal, 171
Congress Socialist party, 63
Conservative party, policy in India,
591 opinion on partition, 132;

reaction to date of withdrawal, 137;
reaction to withdrawal, 160; accepts
plan for partition, 172
Constituent assembly, Muslim League
threatens to boycott, 129; meeting
of, 132 et seq.

Corficld, Sir Conrad, attempts to
save princely states’ independence,
1 86 et seq.

Cripps, Sir Stafford, 102, no; charac-
ter of, 78; Nehru on, 80; Cabinet
Mission, 101 ; on Pakistan, 13 1
Cripps mission, 77, 97; Chamber of
Princes asks for right to form
union, 183

Crum, Lieutenant-Colonel Vernon
Erskine, 148
Curzon, Lord, 83

Dacca, violence in, 125
Darjeeling, 208

Das, C. R., forms new party, 46
Dawn , 75, 209

Defence, problems of, 14; obligations
of native princes, 19; cost of, 23
Delhi, 150, 212; riots in, 42, 54, 221;
courts-martial of officers at, 93 ;
meeting of constituent assembly,
132

Delhi Pact, 58 et seq.

Demobilization, 41
Democracy, disadvantages of in
Lidia, 6; doubts as to value of, 14;
in Lidia, 229; in Pakistan, 230
Despotism, advocates of, 6; as form
of government, 11, 14
Direct Action, nature of, 116
Direct Action Day, call for, 116;

riots on, 1 17 et seq.

Disraeli, Benjamin, on Lidia, 3
District Officers, impartiality of, 15;
fears of, 16

Dominion status, attitude of Con-
gress, 159, 161; parties accept, 171
Dufferin, Lord, on Indian National
Congress, 8

Dum Dum airport, 112
Dyarchy, 39, 64

242

INDEX

Dyer, General, and Amritsar mas-
sacre, 43 et seq.

East India Company, administration

by, 4, 13 .

Education, introduction of, by Brit-
ain, 5 ; effects of, 24

Elections, Congress votes in, 65;
holding of, 97; parties prepare for,
98; promises, 99; results, 114

Elections (1945), results of, 100

Eurasians. See Anglo-Indians

Famine, in Bengal, 117; threat of in
Punjab, 209

Federal provisions of Government of
India Act, 64

Federation, Azad’s proposals for, 104;
Mountbatten’s plans for, 160;
princes consider, 183, 192

Finance, opposition to Indian govern-
ment policy, 23

Forward Bloc, formation of, 67

Franchise, limitations of, 98

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 25,
96, 158, 232; as leader of Congress,
29; policies of, 30, 44, 76, 80,
166 ct seq.\ views on Montagu
reforms, 40; change of attitude,
41; arrest in 1919, 42; revolution-
ary techniques, 42; effect of
Amritsar massacre on, 44; choice
of lieutenants, 45; relations with
Nehru, 45; antagonizes Congress,
46; arrest of, 46; attempts to boy-
cott elections, 46; preoccupation
with spinning, 46; British opinion
of, 47; mistaken ideas of blackmail,
47; opinion of Simon Commission,
49; relations with Lord Irwin, 50,
51, 52; breaks salt laws, 53; im-
prisonment of, 54, 56; terms to
Round Table Conference, 56;
Lord Irwin’s appeal to, 57; release
from jail, 57; states terms to
Viceroy, 57; negotiates with Lord
Irwin, 58; opposition to, 58;
arrest of, 60; on Hindu-Muslim
conflict, 60; returns to India, 60;

agreement with Untouchables, 61 ;
release from prison, 61; threatens
fast to death, 61; Congress’s
opinion of, 62; opinion of Jinnah,
63; deserts politics, 64; relations
with Bose, 67; supports Britain in
war, 67, 68; on compromise, 69;
resumes leadership, 71; on self-
government, 72; nominates Nehru
as successor, 75; policy towards
Japan, 76; prepares to negotiate
with Japan, 80; unreality of, 81;
arrest of, 82; fasts, 84; opinion of
Bose, 85; release, 86; meeting with
Jinnah, 86; decline of power, 91;
on Indian Union, 106; reaction to
formation of interim government,
120; sends cable to Attlee, 122;
visits Bengal on peace mission, 126;
attitude to constituent assembly,
133; peace missions of, 129, 165,
214 ct seq., 221 ; relations with Lord
Mountbattcn, 149; asked to con-
demn force, 15 1 ; opposed to parti-
tion of Punjab and Bengal, 155;
character, 166; opposition to par-
tition, 165; accepts withdrawal
plan, 171; warns native princes,
1 8 1, 189; peace mission in Punjab
and Bengal, 214 et seq., 221

Garhmuktcsar, violence in, 126

George VI, King, 148; messages
from, 217

Gladstone, W. E., 38

Goondas, 94

Government, British responsibility
for, 4

Government, Montagu reforms, 39
et seq.

Government of India Act of 1935,
63 et seq.

Governor-General, appointment of,
172 et seq.

Governor-General’s Legislative
Council, elections for, 10

Great War, 1914-18, changes due to,
1 1 ; effects on India, 37 et seq.

Great War, 1939-45, effect on Indian
National Congress, 29

INDEX

243

Gwalior, 185
Hartal, 42

Hindu domination, Muslim fears of,

26, 27, 39, 66, 86; British fears of,

27, 39

Hindu Mahasabha, 76; reaction to
Gandhi’s fast, 84; opinion on
Indian Union, 107; prepares for
civil war, 114

Hindu-Muslim conflict, 46, 48, 50,
55, 80, 87, 99, 108, 230; outbreaks
of violence, 54, 113, 117 et seq.,
221, 225; Gandhi on, 72; dangers
of civil war, 102; on Direct Action
Day, 1 17 et seq.; in Bengal, 126 et
seq.', in interim government, 15 1;
in Punjab, 213 et seq.; Gandlii
pacifies, 217; in Calcutta, 221
Hindu religion, used by nationalists,
17

Hindus, 19; nationalist ideals of, 25;

opinion on Simon commission, 49
Hunter Commission, 43
Hyderabad, 20, 182, 203; refuses to
join India or Pakistan, 187; de-
mands to remain independent, 196
et seq.; Indian troops enter, 199;
joins India, 199

Imperialism, legacy of, 23 1
India, Travancorc and Jodhpur join,
193 » sends troops to border of
Junagadh, 195; sends troops to
Hyderabad, 199; Hyderabad joins,
199; allocation of Bengal, 208;
relations with Pakistan, 222
India. British government of, 4-13;
civilizing’ attitude of Britain, 6
et seq.; legislative reforms, 6 et
seq.; effect of 1914-18 War, n,
37 et seq.; rulers of, 13 et seq.;
despotism as best form of govern-
ment, 14; effects of progress, 15;
the native princes, 19, 20; the
nationalists, 20 et seq.; people of,
30 et seq.; Burma separated from,
63; during World War 1939-45,

67 et seq. ; rejects Cripps’ proposals,
79

Indian Army, threat of mutiny, 54;
decline in morale, 93; decline of
British element, 96; division of,
102; task of keeping peace, 119,
126, 135, 220; decline of British
control, 135; plan for division,
153 et seq., 158, 161, 164, 175, 178
et seq.

Indian Civil Service, 15 et seq.; phil-
osophy of, 18; pohey towards
Montagu report, 39; decline of
British clement, 96; uncertainty of,
114; decline in numbers, 135, 136;
division of, 179; collapse of in
Punjab, 215; rebuilding of, 227

Indian Councils Act of 1861, 67

Indian Councils Act of 1892, changes
due to, 22

Indian Independence Bill, 180

Indian Independence League, 85

Indian middle class, respect for
Britain, 33

Indian National Army, formation of,
85; defeat of, 86; courts-martial of
officers, 92 et seq.

Indian National Congress, first meet-
ing, 8; as representative of India, 9;
nature of delegates, 23 ; opposition
to land reform, 23 ; Muslim opposi-
tion to, 26; and Muslim fears, 27,
28; demands for self-government,
27; formation of provincial
branches, 28; leadership of, 28;
conflicting interests in, 29; reasons
for unity, 29; policy of, 30; Mus-
lims join, 38; opposition to Row-
latt Acts, 42; effect of Gandhi’s
leadership, 44; reformed by Valla-
bhbliai Patel, 45; Gandlii antagon-
izes, 46; split on non-cooperation,
46; decline of, 47, 48; opinion of
Simon Commission, 49; calls for
dominion status, 50; Muslim oppo-
sition to, 50; pledges independence,
52; attitude to Round Table Con-
ference, 56, 58; possibility of co-
operation, 59; declared illegal, 60;

1NOBX

244

Indian National Congress— continued
opinion of Jinnah, 63; reaction to
Government of India Act, 64;
accepts office, 65 et seq. ; reactions to
World War 1939-45, 68 et seq.;
pledges support for war effort, 69;
resignation of provincial min-
istries, 69; opinion on civil dis-
obedience, 71; doubts on British
sincerity, 74; calls for co-operation,
75 ; prepares to assume administra-
tion, 76; attitude towards Japan,
79; rejects Cripps’ proposals, 80;
moral collapse of leadership, 81 ;
arrest of leaders, 82 ; declared illegal,
82; defends Indian National Army
officers, 92; election promises, 98;
split in ranks, 98, 104; results in
elections, 100; attitude towards
federation, 105; attitude towards
Indian Union, 106; attitude to-
wards interim government, 109 et
seq., 127; reject proposals for inter-
im government, no; unable to
control events, 113 ; election gains,
1 14; attitude towards Cabinet
Mission, 116; blames Muslim
League for riots, 120; campaign
against Wavell, 121, 122, 128; con-
fidence in Labour Party’s policy,
1 21 ; unconstitutional behaviour of,
128 ; policy on constituent assembly,
133; demands Muslim resignation
from cabinet, 134; reaction to date
of withdrawal, 137; formulates
policy for final phase, 141 et seq.;
attempts to split, 15 1; change of
policy on Pakistan, 152; internal
factions, 152; encourages violence,
153; discussion on Untouchables,
155; ignores Gandhi, i<5<5; reaction
to filial agreement, 169; accepts
withdrawal plan, 171; attitude to
princely states, 184, 187; warns
princes, 189; pressure on princes,
191; attitude towards administra-
tion, 228; caste background of
members, 233. See also Nationalists
Indian Nationalists. See Nationalists

Indian Navy, mutiny in, 112 et seq.
Indian Union, proposals for, 105;

opinions on, 106 et seq.

Influenza epidemic of 1918, 41
Interim government, composition of,
109; meeting of Jinnah and Nehru,
117; attempts to form, 120 et seq.;
Gandhi’s reaction to, 120; forma-
tion of, 123; Muslim League’s
reaction to, 123; Muslim League
decides to join, 124; varying atti-
tudes to, 127 et seq.; internal dis-
putes, 15 1

Irwin, Lord, 61, 65 ; calls conference
of Hindus and Muslims, 48;
character of, 50; relations with
Gandhi, 50, 51, 52; statement of
aims, 51; appeal to Gandhi, 57,
58; leaves India, 59
Ismay, Field-Marshal Lord, 151, I59»
164, 175; on Mountbatten’s staff
147; flies to London with plan for
withdrawal, 158
Ittchad-ul-Muslimin, 197

aipur, joins assembly, 185
Jallian walla Bagh, massacre at, 43 et
seq., 49, 92

Japan, attack on Pearl Harbour, 74;
threatens India, 75; bombs Indian
towns, 78; attitude of Congress to,
79; Congress prepares to negotiate
with, 80; formation of Indian
National Army, 85
Jenkins, Sir Evan, 213, 214; warns
Viceroy on violence, 210; meeting
with Mountbattcn, 21 1
Jinnah, M. A., 98, 108, 115, 149,

161, 216, 219; supports Congress
against Simon Commission, 49 »
becomes leader of Muslim League,
50; ambitions of, 63, 7 6, 103, 142;
opinion of Congress on, 63; re-
forms Muslim League, 63 ; demands
for Pakistan, 70, 71, 73. 93, 94, 97»
165; rejects Cripps Mission, 80;
meeting with Gandhi, 86; on
Simla conference, 87; British opin-
ion of, 94; on minorities, 102; on

INDEX

245

Indian Union, 107; policy of, 108,
109, 136; attitude towards interim
government, 109 et seq demands
postponement of elections, 111;
withdraws support for Cabinet
Mission’s proposals, 115; meets
Nehru, 116; relations with Sulira-
wardy, 117; Attlee’s opinion of,
122; reaction to formation of
interim government, 123; meet-
ings with Wavcll, 124; policy on
interim government, 127; threat
to boycott constituent assembly,
129; in London, 130; Labour
Party s opinion of, 132; Congress’s
opinion on, 142; relations with
Mountbatten, 150; asked to con-
demn force, 1 5 1 ; allies of in Con-
gress, 152; as orator, 153; meeting
with Gandhi, 155; views on par-
tition, 155; meeting at Simla, 162;
meeting on partition, 167; and
independence in Bengal, 169;
broadcast on partition, 170;
appoints himself as Governor-
General of Pakistan, 173 ; meeting
with Maharaja of Jodhpur, 193 ;
relations with native princes, 185;
and Kashmir, 202; promises to
Sikhs, 210; relations with Sikhs,
212; demands arrest of Sikh leaders,
2I3; plot to assassinate, 213; in-
stallation as Governor-General, 217 ;
responsibility in Punjab war, 219;
accusations against India, 222

Jodhpur, joins assembly, 185; joins
India, 193

Johnson, Colonel, 78

Joint Defence Council, acts on Punjab
situation, 220

Junagadh, decides to join Pakistan,
194; troops sent to border, 195;
agrees to join India, 196

Jute, 208, 227

Karachi, 133, 135, 213, 217; mutiny

at, 113

^as^un^r* *9> 223 ; problem of, 199 et
» importance of, 199 ; war in, 201

Kashmir, Maharaja of, 19, 185, 200
Khan Sahib, 142, 143, 169
Kipling, Rudyard, 223
Kripalani, J. B„ 167
Kshatrivas, 233
Kutch, 203

Labour Party. Policy towards self-
government for India, 13, 18, 21,
48, Si, 55, 56, 72, 95, 9<5, 101, 160;
and Simon Commission, 48; ig-
nores Simon report, 55; Nehru
loses faith in, 56; demands release
of Congressmen, 83 ; call for Indian
national government, 87; forms
government, 88; promises self-
government, 88, 91, 97; character
of, 95; feelings on partition, 103;
Congress reaction to policy of, 12 1 ;
opinion of Jinnah and Nehru, 122,
132; policy towards transfer of
power, 145 et seq. ; responsibility in
Punjab war, 217

Lahore, 208 ; riots in, 42, 1 3 5, 1 79, 2 1 4
Land reform, attitude of National
Congress, 9

Lawyers, among Nationalists, 23, 24
Linlithgow, Lord, replacement of, 84
Liaquat Ali Khan, 133, 195, 216;
becomes member of interim
government, 124; visits Calcutta,
126; meeting in London, 13 1; as
finance minister, 15 1; attempts to
reorganize armed forces, 153;
meeting at Simla, 162; meeting on
partition, 167; proposes Jinnah as
Governor-General, 174; on Par-
tition Committee, 178; demands
arrest of Sikhs, 213; responsibility
in Punjab war, 219
London, Round Table Conference at,
56; meeting of rival leaders in, 130
Lucknow Pact, 38, 39

Macaulay, Lord, 5, 8, 231, 234
Macdonald, Ramsay, 60, 78; on
Indian self-government, 51; new
policy of, 57

INDEX

246

Madras, 76; naval mutiny at, 113
Mangrol, 194
Manipur, 203

Mcnon, V. K. Krishna, at Simla, 161
Menon, V. P., 152; on Mountbatten’s
staff, 148; discussions on with-
drawal, 154; comments on plan,
159; persuades Patel to accept
partition, 159; criticism of plan,
161; prepares new plan, 163; flies
to London with Mountbatten, 164;
made secretary of States Depart-
ment, 187; and problem of native
princes, 188: role in consolidation
of princely states, 203 : suggestions
on Punjab problem, 212
Middle class, Westernizing of, 7 et
seq.; demands of, 8, 24; opposition
to, 9; in National Congress, 22 et
seq.; education of, 24; respect for
Britain, 33

Mifcville, Sir Eric, 148
Migration, from unsafe areas, 156
Minorities, problem of, 39; Round
Table Conference concern with,
60; welfare of, 100; Attlee on, 100,
102; Jinnah on, 102; in interim
government, 109; Churchill on,
138: R. A. Butler on, 138
Monckton, Sir Walter, 187, 197, 198
Money-lenders, National Congress’s
attitude to, 9

Montagu, E. S. Report oti Indian
Constitutional Reforms, 38, 39
Montagu-Chclmsford reforms, 38 et
seq.

Money, Lord, on representative
government, 6

Morley-Minto reforms, 6, 10, 39
Mountbatten, Lady, influence on
Nehru, 152

Mountbatten, Admiral Earl, 94, 217,
218; character of, 95, 147;

appointed Viceroy, 137; installa-
tion of, 144; instructions from
Attlee, 145 et seq.; staff, 147; rela-
tions with Nehru, 148; relations
with Gandhi, 149; relations with
Jinnah, 150; persuades Patel to

accept partition, 152; rejects plan
for dividing armed forces, 153 ; has
withdrawal plan prepared, 154;
date of withdrawal, 156 et seq.;
decides on partition, 157 et seq.;
plan for withdrawal, 160; prepares
new plan, 163 ; flics to London, 164;
broadcast on partition, 170; as
possible Governor-General, 172 et
seq. ; Chairman of Partition Com-
mittee, 178; flies to London, 186;
relations with Sir Conrad Corfield,
187; opinion of native princes, 188;
meets native princes, 190; advice to
Hyderabad, 197; visit to Kashmir,
200; calls meeting on Punjab,
211; visits Bengal, 212; reads
message from King George VI,
217; meetings on Punjab, 220

Mudie, Sir Francis, 213, 214

Mughal empire, 26

Muslim-Hindu conflict. See Hindu-
Muslim conflict

Muslim League, 230; Jinnah becomes
leader, 50; reorganization of, 62;
reaction to outbreak of war, 68;
demands for Pakistan, 70, 71, 73 »
84, 104, 116, 139; and Simla con-
ference, 87; attacks on Azad, 98;
election promises, 98; gains in
elections, 100, 114; attitude to-
wards federation, 105; opinion on
Indian Union, 107; attitude to-
wards interim government, 109 et
seq. ; withdraw support for Cabinet
Mission, 115; forms Direct Action,
1 16 et seq.; blames Congress for
riots, 120; reaction to formation of
interim government, 123; decides
to join interim government, 124;
policy towards interim govern-
ment, 127; accuses Congress of un-
constitutional behaviour, 128;
threat to boycott constituent as-
sembly, 129; attitude towards
constituent assembly, I33» *34 »
reaction to withdrawal date, 137;
attempt to control Punjab, 139 e t
seq. ; attempt to control Assam, 143 »

INDEX

247

attempt to control NWFP, 143;
attempts to influence NWFP, 15 1;
campaign in NWFP, 153; reac-
tions to final agreement, 169;
accepts withdrawal plan, 170;
attitude to princely states, 184;
relations with native princes, 187;
attitude to Junagadh, 195; fears
over Kashmir, 202; relations with
Sikhs, 210

Muslims, 19, 20; fears of, 26, 39, 66,
86; opposition to Congress, 26,
28, 50; join Congress, 38; separate
electorate for, 39; opinion on
Simon Commission, 49; violence
on Northwest Frontier, 55; de-
mand separate electorates, 60;
reaction to Government of India
Act, 64; in Indian Army, 74;
members of interim government,
123. See also Hindu-Muslim con-
flict

Mutiny, in Bengal, 7; of 1857, 19, 26,
40; naval, 112
Mysore, 1 81, 185, 203

National Government formed, 59
Nationalists, 20 et seq. ; agitation for
self-government, 5; views on self-
government, 13; true nature of,
21 * legal profession in, 23 ; Hindu
revivalism and, 25; new concepts
ofi 27; support for Britain in
J9I4» 37 » view on Montagu re-
forms, 40; attitude to Japan, 79.
See also Indian National Congress
Native princes, 19 et seq. ; powers of,
x9» 20; demand for self-govern-
ment, 5 6, 155; attitude towards
Indian Union, 107; policy towards
constituent assembly, 133 ; problem
of, 181 et seq.; attempts to reform
states, 183 ; relations with Congress
and Muslim League, 184; British
allies, 185 et seq.; Mountbattcn’s
opinion of, 188; meeting with
Mountbatten, 190; sign instrument
of accession, 192
Nawanagar, 194

Nazimuddin, Kwaja, conversations
with Wavell, 120

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 61, 68, 86, 121,
128, 158, 166, 167, 216; character
of, 45; relations with Gandhi, 45;
calls for independence, 49, 50;
arrest of, 53; imprisonment of, 56;
opposes Gandhi, 58; arrest of, 60;
opinion of Jinnah, 63 ; on Gandhi’s
influence, 64; on Government of
India Act, 64, 65 ; reaction to war,
69; arrest of, 71; release, 74;
nominated as Gandhi’s successor,
75; policy of non-cooperation, 76;
on Cripps Mission, 80; importance
of, 91; compared with Attlee, 95;
opinion of Mountbatten, 95; on
partition, 104; becomes President
of Congress, 107; influence of, 108;
on result of assembly elections,
1 15; meets Jinnah, 116, 124;
reaction to formation of interim
government, 120; Labour Party’s
opinion of, 122, 132; appointed
vice-president of interim govern-
ment, 123; visits Calcutta, 126;
meeting in London, 130; reaction
to date of withdrawal, 137; on
violence in Punjab, 141; visits
NWFP, 143 ; relations with Mount-
batten, 148; change of attitude to-
wards partition, 15 1 et seq.; decline
of importance in Congress, 159;
discussion on partition, 167 et seq.;
broadcast on partition, 170; warns
princely states, 181; attitude to-
wards princely states, 184; re-
actions to actions of Sir Conrad
Corfield, 187; warns princes, 189;
reaction to Kaslimir problem, 200,
202; on Punjab problem, 213;
responsibility in Punjab war, 219;
tours Punjab, 220

Nehru, Pandit Motilal, forms new
party, 46; arrest of, 55 ; death of, 57

Nicholls, Commander George, 148

Nishtar, Sardar, peace missions of,
126; at meeting on partition, 167,
178; tours Punjab, 220

INDEX

248

Noakhali, violence in, 125, 215

Non-cooperation, policy of, 44 et seq.

North-West Frontier Province
(NWFP), 100, 142; rebellion in,
55; as part of Pakistan, 103;
government of, 139; struggle for
control of, 142 et seq.; Muslim
League attempts to control, 151,
153; Pathans demand own state,
156; violence in, 156; provision for
in plan of partition, 168 ; decides to
join Pakistan, 180

Pakistan, demands for, 84, 93, 97,
116, 131, 139, 165; division of, 103;
extent of, 103; Congress’s views
on, 104; alternative to, 120;
Britain’s attitude, 13 1, 150; Nehru’s
change of attitude, 15 1 etseq.; Con-
gress changes policy, 152; reactions
in provinces, 168; Governor-
General of, 172 et seq.; structure of,
179 et seq. ; supports Junagadh, 195 ;
complains to UN, 199; responsi-
bility for tribal invasion of Kash-
mir, 201; policy on Kashmir, 202;
allocation of Bengal, 208 ; reaction
to division of Punjab, 209; rela-
tions with India, 222; background
of rulers, 233

Parliamentary delegation, British
(1945), 99

Parliamentary system in India, British
opinion on, 6

Parsee, member of interim govern-
ment, 123

Partition, difficulties of, 102; Con-
gress’s views on, 104; role of Nehru,
108; British attitude towards, 150;
Nehru has change of attitude, 151
et seq.; Mountbatten’s decision,
157 et seq.; possible effect on Com-
monwealth, 158 etseq. ; meeting on,
167 et seq.; joint broadcast on, 170;
problems of, 170; machinery for,
178 et seq.; results of, 227. See also
British withdrawal

Partition Committee, 178, 213

Passive resistance, conception of 42
Patel, Vallabhbhai, 66, 148, 161, 163,
198, 203, 216; reforms Congress,
45; arrest of, 53, 60; on partition,
98 ; on Pakistan, 104; urges Bombay
mutineers to surrender, 113; in
interim government, 123 ; visits
Calcutta, 126; change of policy on
partition, 152; accepts partition,
159; discussions at Simla, 162;
meeting on partition, 167 et seq.t
178; negotiations with native prin-
ces, 190, 193 ; advises against arrest
of Sikh leaders, 213; responsibility
in Punjab war, 219
Patel, Vithalbhai, calls for new leader,
61-2

Pathanistan, 169

Pathans, in North-West Frontier
Province, 143 ; demand own state,
156

Patiala, joins assembly, 185
Pearl Harbour, attack on, 74
Peasants, respect for District Officers,
15; resistance to taxation, 29;
‘inert mass’, 41; indifference to
politics, 74, 96; communist influ-
ence among, 144
Peshawar, fighting at, 54
Pethick-Lawrence, Lord, 102, no,
129; on elections, 99; on Cabinet
Mission, 101
Plague, 17

Population exchange, Jinnah’s plan,
155

Poverty, in India, 3, 9
Prasad, Rajendra, on partition Com-
mittee, 178

Press, censorship of, 71; encourages
violence, 125, 153, 222
Provinces, formation of 63
Public opinion. In India, British
access to, 7; force of 31; in
Britain, 31; means of expression, 32
Punjab, Gandhi arrested in, 42;
Muslims in, 100; as part of Pakistan,
103; division of 103; government
of 139; Muslim League’s attack
on, 139 et seq.; violence in, 140 et

INDEX

249

seq.; provision for in plan for
withdrawal, 169; partition of 170;
decides on partition, 179; problem
of division, 204 et seq., 208 et seq. ;
signs of chaos in, 209; discussed at
Partition Council, 213, Frontier
Force established, 21 1; war in,
214 et seq.; responsibility for
violence, 219

Punjab Frontier Force, established,
21 1 ; in action, 214 et seq.; mis-
placed trust in, 219; replacement
of, 220

Radcliffc, Sir Cyril, 21 1 ; appointed
to arbitrate on division of Bengal
and Punjab, 204

Rajagopalachari, C., his offer to
Britain, 70; on National Congress,
70; calls for resistance against Japan,
76; resigns from Congress, 80;
member of interim government,
123

Rees, Major-General, commander of
Punjab Boundary Force, 21 1, 214

Reforms, during 19th century, 17;
opposition of British India Associa-
tion to, 22; opposition of Congress
to» 23 * following Montagu report,
38 et seq.; in Government of India
Act, 63 ; of Congress, 66

Refugees, in Delhi, 156; in Punjab,
214. 218, 220

Regulating Act (1773), 4, 14

Religion, effect on Indian politics, 26
et seq.

Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms,

u 38’ 3?

Rcwa, joins assembly, 185

Riots, outbreaks of, 40, 46, 51; of
1919* 42; of 1942, 82; following
civil disobedience, 54; in Calcutta,
117 etseq ., 221, 225; encouraged by
press, 125, 153, 222; in Punjab,
139 et seq., 213 et seq.; in Assam,
J43 '» encouraged by Congress,
IJ3J threats of, 176; in Bengal, 215
et seq.; in Delhi, 221
Roosevelt, President F. D., 78

Round Table Conference of 1931,
27, 52

Rowlatt, Mr Justice, committee on
terrorism, 40

Royal Air Force, mutiny in, 112;
action in East Bengal, 125

Royal Indian Air Force, insubordina-
tion in, 11 2

Salt laws, Gandhi breaks, 53

Samuel, Lord, 214

Satyagraha, 42

Scheduled Castes Federation, 84;
opinion on Indian Union, 107;
given scat in interim government,
124

Sccundrabad, 187

Sedition Acts, 41

Self-determination, policy of Allies
after 1918, 42

Self-government, agitation for, 5 ;
demand for by Congress, 8 ;
effect of British public opinion, 12;
Macaulay’s views on, 13; Labour
Party’s policy, 13, 18, 21, 48, 51,
55. 56, 72, 95. 96, 101, 160 ;
Labour Party’s promises, 51, 88,
91; demand for at Round Table
Conference, 57; Gandhi on, 72;
British view, 83. See also British
withdrawal, Partition, etc.

Sikhs, 133, 167; separate electorate
for. 391 opinion on Indian Union,
107; prepare for civil war, 114,
169, 176, 213; fears of, 133. 1 34.
210; demand own state, 156, 210;
demands to Radcliffe, 208; rela-
tions with Jinnah, 212

Simla, meetings at, 87, 97, 105, 161

Simon, Sir John, chairman of Com-
mission, 49, 204

Simon Commission, 48 et seq.; public
opinion on, 49 1 publication of
report, 55

Sind, Muslims in, 100; as part of
Pakistan, 103 ; government of, 139;
provision for in withdrawal plan,
168; decides to join Pakistan, 179

250

INDEX

Spinning, Gandhi’s preoccupation
with, 46
Srinagar, 201
Suez Canal, opening of, 4
Suhrawardy, H. S., 205; and the
riots in Bengal, 117 et seq .; aims for
separate state of Bengal, 156, 169;
visits Calcutta with Gandhi, 216
Supreme Court, establishment of, 4
Swaraj party, formation of, 46; cor-
ruption of, 47
Sylhct, 208

Tagore, Rabindranath, 46
Tara Singh, 140, 213
Taxation, opposition to, 23; peasant
resistance to, 29; on business
profits, 15 1

Terrorism, inspired by Tilak, 25;
outbreaks of, 40, 46, 51; following
civil disobedience, 54; reasons for,
113; in Calcutta, 117 et seq., 221,
225; encouraged by press, 125,
153, 222; spread of, 126, 135; in
Punjab, 139 et seq., 213 et seq.; in
Assam, 143; and Congress, 153;
threats of, 176; in Bengal, 215 etseq.;
in Delhi, 221

Thompson, Edward, on British rule
in India, 16

Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 27, 42, 230;
agitation of, 25; negotiates Luck-
now Pact, 38
Times, The, 49, 181
Times of India, on collapse of Con-
gress, 48

Tippera, violence in, 125
Travancore, refuses to join India or
Pakistan, 187; joins India, 193
Tripura, 203
Trivedi, C. R., 213, 214
Tuker, Lieutenant-General, 212; plan
for division of army, 175
Turkey, 28

Udaipur, joins assembly, 185
Unemployment, riots due to, 42

United Nations, Churchill suggests
approach to, 138; Pakistan com-
plains to, 199

United Provinces, terrorism in, 126
United States, and India, 78
Untouchables, Gandhi’s relations
with, 61 ; representation in interim
government, 124; Congress dis-
cusses, 155
USSR, 102

Viceroy’s Executive Council, 70, 73 ;

Indian representative on, 10, 97
Villages, Congress organization in, 29
Violence, inspired by Tilak, 25 ; out-
breaks of 40, 46, 51 ; following civil
disobedience, 54; reasons for, 113;
in Calcutta, 117 et seq., 221, 225;
encouraged by press, 125, 153, 222;
spread of, 126, 135; in Punjab,
139 et seq., 213 et seq.; in Assam,
143 ; and Congress, 153 ; threats of,
176; in Bengal, 215 etseq. ; in Delhi,
221

War, between India and Pakistan,
threat of, 202; in Punjab, 214 et
seq.

Wavell, Field-Marshal Earl, 136;
appointed Viceroy, 85; new pro-
posals of, 87; policy of, 94; con-
sultations in London, 97; attempts
to form interim government, 109
et sea., 117, 120, 123; persuades
Jinnah and Nehru to meet, 116;
Congress’s campaign against, 121;
meetings with Jinnah, 124; opinion
of interim government, 127; flies to
London, 130; plan for withdrawal,
135; termination of appointment,
137

Willingdon, Lord, 59, 60
Wilson, President, 42, 73
Wood, Sir Charles, on representative
government, 6

World War (1939-45), India in, 67 et
seq.